Saturday's festival launched a fortnight of live broadcasting

A community radio station has been set up under the BBC's Lleisiau (Voices) project which has been working with the people of Blaenau Ffestiniog since April.

Radio Bro Blaenau (Blaenau Community Radio) was officially launched with a music festival on Saturday and will start broadcasting at 1830 BST on Monday evening until 27 June.

The hour-and-a-half long nightly programme will include a daily soap opera produced by local schoolchildren, local news bulletins and items about the area and its people.

They will be presented by local DJs, starting with Gwilym Euros Roberts and Dafydd Hughes on Monday.

About 1,500 gathered in Blaenau over the weekend

The Lleisiau team has set up in the town's former Co-op shop which has been transformed into a community studio and cyber centre with internet access.

A corresponding Voices project held in Pill, near Newport in south east Wales earlier this year, produced a series of documentaries entitled Voices from Pill.

Helen Hughes, the BBC's project coordinator, said the idea is to work with local people and realise the ambitions of the community.

"We have been working on a one-to-one basis with local people and with primary and secondary schoolchildren in Blaenau.

"They have been producing radio packages on local oral history and so on.

"The most interesting project has been the radio soap developed by Ysgol y Moelwyn pupils.

The old Co-op has been turned into a studio

"The older children have also worked on news items investigating the experiences of children who have moved to the area from England and how they have adjusted to the local culture and language.

"They have also been interviewing local celebrities and all this will be transmitted on Radio Bro Blaenau. The community has really got involved," she added.

As well as learning communication skills, Ms Hughes says the project has also raised the self esteem of the young people.

'Special community'

"In the Lleisiau shop, they have been learning how to edit radio and television material and for several weeks young people have been visiting to use the computers donated by Gwynedd council," she said.

A Lleisiau website has also been set up on BBC's Welsh language site, Cymru'r Byd.

John Roberts, Lleisiau producer, said Blaenau Ffestiniog is a lively and colourful and exciting place.

"The aim of the project is to bring the BBC closer to the community," he said.

"It is very special community and we want to make their voices heard.

"We hope to give them an opportunity to talk about what they think, what they do and broadcast in their own communities."