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Radio Dhadkan D hadkan community radio is an initiative of UNICEF to empower women and girls to access services on their rights and entitlements. Shivpuri is home to 1.5 lakh Sahariyas and two hundred Bedia families. Due to a poor economic base and traditional barriers like gender and caste divide, Shivpuri is one of the most backward districts of Madhya Pradesh.
The broadcast was launched on 8 October 2010 by then District Magistrate of Shivpuri and UNICEF delegates. Ideosyn New Delhi lent its support for staff training and system building. The initial broadcast was for two hours which was repeated later three times. Based on listenership opinion, the programme preparation and schedule was prepared. The Sahariya community and the slum women were the main target audience for Radio Dhadkan. Programmes on women and adolescence vis-à-vis health and gender equality figured very high in the demand list. The team members took the responsibility of organising group meetings for programme recording and feedback. Narrowcasting made it possible to maintain regular interactions with the listeners. The project had the support of village volunteers and Panchayati Raj Institutions. Listener groups of girls and women were formed to set up a mechanism for their active participation. It proved to be very useful. The Dhadkan team has several women on its teams at various levels. It is of immense help in building an intimate and frank rapport with the women in the communities. On the issue of economic self reliance, Dhadkan raises about Rs 7000 per month from the advertisements collected from the market. It has not been an easy journey. When we started in 2010, most of the villagers did not have radio sets. The few radios in the villages were locally made and partly damaged. Some radio sets were distributed to take care of this problem. Twice transmitters were sent to the radio manufacturers WEBEL for repair. Since January 2012, the transmitter’s issue has improved leading to a lot of activity in the station. Now there are about 100 phone calls from the listeners with requests for music and songs. Broadcast is now for 12 hours. Four-hour programmes are played three times a day. The team members are now subject specialists: Santosh airs programmes for the Sahariyas, Sirnam for agriculture and farming, Kalyan speaks and gets experts on health issues, and Rekha is in charge of programmes aimed at adolescent girls. The team has prepared 1732 new programmes for broadcasting. It now covers 412 hours of radio on air. |
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In our experiences of working with tribal communities in 189 villages having a population of 3 lakh, we have realised that one of the major causes of being a backward district apart from depleting livelihood options has also been the serious gap in the information flow from Service Providers to the community. Information on health, agriculture, medical care, education, livelihood, water and sanitation by and large seems to have its intensive outreach to only regions with relatively better media connectivity. Apart from the above issues, the level of sensitisation within the community on issues relating to women rights, child rights and girl child education seems to be limited to regions where voluntary organisations have intervened in some way. |
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The studio is located in the northern end of town. At present, it covers 1.8 lakh population from 55 villages and 8 slums. It has a team of 12 staff members comprising of a station manager, two supervisors and six field recorders. UNICEF keeps organising visits for monitoring and training of the staff. Two Sahariya women have proved to be the key to intimate interactions with this community. Champa and Ramvati were invited to the team for their willingness to serve the Sahariya community. Both are illiterate but very wise and capable. They effortlessly record, anchor and operate the relay of programmes. A special one-hour daily programme is specifically designed for the Sahariyas. It covers folk songs, stories and social issues. This community enjoys hearing their dialect and familiar voices over the radio. More radio sets are acutely needed to reach out to the women and girls in all the slums. The lack of any organised technical support agency is a serious issue. For all minor or serious problems, the manufacturer has to be approached, who does not care much about day-to-day malfunctions. An immediate setup of a technical agency is the need of the hour. Dhadkan has not been able to decide what is causing a persistent variance in the quality and strength of the signal. One opinion is that we need to change the antenna cable. Others feel that the transmitters are substandard and based on obsolete imported circuit, and cannot be repaired and should be thrown away. The phone in and mixer have the same problem. The supplier and the repair shops have declared both as un-repairable. Sambhav faced serious criticism from the local market as well as the listeners because of technical concerns. It is an ongoing concern for the producers of the programmes as well as listeners. A request is being made for viable solutions to continue with these programmes that have in deed become the heartbeat of the community. q Dr S K Singh
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