The scope behind this project is to strengthen the evangelisation work being carried by the Catholic Church and to increase its presence in all the Region of Izabal and beyond.  This project aims to produce and transmit audio-visual content related to pastoral and humanitarian issues concerning the poor communities of Izabal.

This television project is called Stella Maris TV and is being administered by the parish of Santo Hermano Pedro which forms part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Izabal. The parish priest, Fr Anton Grech is coordinating the initial stages and is receiving assistance by Alvin and George Scicluna of the Maltese media company Citadel Video Communication – CVC . Estuardo Franco, a youth from our parish travelled to Gozo, Malta where he received a three month hands on training course by CVC. He is now responsible to implement the television project here in Izabal.

On his return from his overseas training together with Fr Anton Grech they met with Mr. Cesar Martinez, the owner of Electro Barrios, which runs the cable TV service in our municipality. A formal request to start the new Catholic TV station service was made and accepted  being assigned Channel 66. At the moment it also transmits the programmes in other cable TV services. As a first initiative of this project we  started  transmitting live both the Sunday  4pm mass and the Wednesday 630pm mass respectively.

The project’s long term vison aims to start producing local programmes featuring religious, social, cultural, sports and general information content. Eventually, our aim is to construct TV studios which will be located in the buildings next to the Stella Maris parish located at Santo Tomas de Castilla, Puerto Barrios, Izabal.

Thanks to the Cable TV company Electro Barrios which linked a 3.5km optic fibre cable from the Sella Maris TV’s studio to the distribution centre. In this way the signal can be transmitted to all cable users in the municipality of Puerto Barrios. And also thanks to Izabal Cable Company which is also transmitting our programmes on Channel 88.

The Stella Maris Cable TV project is in its initial stages. Several equipment including video cameras and for the editing and transmission processes still needs to be purchased. For this reason we are appealing to all those generous people who can help us in one way or another to spread the word of God by means of this medium. We wish to thank Mark Cremona a youth from Malta who is constantly helping this cause.