Community Radio for Change

P Krishnamurthi Team Leader, DHAN Foundation AMARC, the World Association of Community Broadcasters, describes community radio as follows: When radio fosters the participation of citizens and defends their interests; when it reflects the tastes of the majority and makes good humour and hope its main purpose; when it truly informs; when it helps resolve the thousand and one problems of daily life; when all ideas are debated in its programs and all opinions are respected; when cultural diversity is stimulated over commercial homogeneity; when women are main players in communication and not simply a pretty voice or a publicity gimmick; when no type of dictatorship is tolerated, not even the musical dictatorship of the big recording studios; when everyone's words fly without discrimination or censorship, that is community radio. DHAN Foundation believes that the Community radio can perform as an enabling tool for poverty reduction, when it is truly owned and managed by the community, particularly the Peoples Organisations promoted by the poor women, small and marginal farmers and fishermen. Promoting mutuality, self help and self reliance for achieving poverty reduction should form foundation for the Community Radios. DHAN perceives that the main commitment and mandate for community radio promoted or supported by it should be committed to produce programming on themes that will contribute to the development of the communities that they serve.

DHANs approach in ICT for Development

Poverty is a complex phenomenon. The gap between the rich and poor is widening. Isolation, powerlessness, and inequalities aggravate poverty, perpetuate it from one generation to the next and make the poor more vulnerable and never allow them to come up. For poverty reduction to be achieved, the limitations that the socially and economically marginalised communities face must be eliminated. These limitations include low self-esteem, lack of mobility and access to and control over resources, lack of access to services, to skill and capacity building opportunities, to information and technology, as well as to decision-making in the community and within and households. DHANs ultimate goal is to reduce poverty by collective action and promote selfreliance among the poor and their organisations in a large scale through context specific development strategies. In all the themes and interventions DHAN follows the enabling approach of poverty reduction, where the themes such as microfinance,

water and rainfed farming were conceived to be the means for poverty reduction, not the ends. Similarly the ICT for Poor theme has also been viewed as a tool to bring about economic and social development. The ICT theme in DHAN has been conceived with following model of development.

Organised Peoples Institution s

Scaled down technolog y

Fig 1

Enabling Environme nt

The enabling approach forms the basis of all the designs and strategies of building people and institutions for poverty reduction. It is the basic approach to processes and deriving from that, institutions, knowledge systems and styles of functioning. This is the enveloping function or approach to the above triad (fig 1). Also, it is important to note that common property approaches to praxis lead to governance and collective empowerment. In the former, placing all the issues, conflicts, and decision-making processes, and so on, in the public space, leads to collective empowerment. Nothing is kept confined to a few individuals. The information and communication technologies should be viewed as enabling inputs for development. The content that the Community Radio Stations develop within and across the communities should be grounded in the following Basics of Development.

Freedom of choice: How do we help individuals and groups to identify, generate and act on their choices? Quality of life: How do we assist persons to determine and develop the meaning of their lives, their identities, and their life styles? Managing resources: How do we deal with the personal responsibility for generation, management and conservation of human and material resources? Inter relatedness: How do we help individuals, institutions and cultures recognise and deal with their inter-relatedness and inter-dependence? Change as a constant: How do we deal with the causes and effects of change within and upon individuals, institutions and societies?

DHANs Experience in Community Radio

After the Tsunami, in December 26, 2004, DHAN Foundation medicine or shelter. Information can save lives, started working in a big way with livelihoods and resources. the affected fishing and farming communities along the coast with a long term development focus. Empowering the community in all aspects, particularly in building capacity of the community for disaster management was felt as an important area of intervention. Applications of ICT were introduced through the Village Information Centres connected with internet facility setup in all the villages. People need information as much as water, food, To complement this ICT initiative, DHAN has launched Kalanjiam Samuga Vanoli (Kalanjiam Community Radio) with a vision of creating a Community Media Centre with mixed media model, combining radio with video and web based technologies. United Nations Development Programme supported this initiative. The Station has started to function from October 2006. The Station is equipped with audio production infrastructure. A team of trained Volunteers from the local community are involved in programme production. The station is connected with the VICs set up by DHAN in the villages through Local Area Network. These VICs narrow cast the programmes produced and sent by the Station through the Public Address Systems fixed over towers. Presently programmes of one hour duration are presented daily. Also the Station broadcasts selected programmes once in a week for fifteen minutes through the AIR - Karaikal FM Station to. With the experience gained from Nagapattinam, DHAN supports of the Peoples Organisations promoted by it with the farmers dependent on traditional water harvesting structures called Kanmoi, in Kottampatty block of Madurai district to launch Vayalagam Samuga Vanoli (Vayalagam Community Radio). Similarly, the tribal women SHG Federation promoted by it in Indervelly Mandal of Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh is getting prepared to launch a community radio station dedicated for tribal development and named it as Mava Gosti Community Radio with the support of Integrated Tribal Development Agency. Details of the CRS are in table 1 Table 1: CRS in various contexts
CRS Kalanjiam Samuga Vanoli Vayalagam Samuga Vanoli Mava Gosti Community Radio Location Vizhunthamavadi, Nagapttinam Kottampatti, Madurai Indervelly, Adilabad, AP Anchored by DHAN Foundation Madurai District Tank Farmers Federation Context Coastal Rural Tribal Major stakeholders Fishermen, women and farmers Farmers and women Tribal women Focus Disaster preparedness and livelihoods Disaster preparedness and livelihoods Livelihoods, health and education

Sri Indrayi Mahila Kalanjia Smakahya

Generating Content: Experience of Vayalagam Community Radio

Locally produced content is a lifeline for the sustainability of community broadcasting. It should focus on the development issues concerning the local communities, aimed at improving and transforming the living standards of communities served by the CRS. The content that depicts local issues should also promote dialogue among the local communities to work for change, and at the same time should advocate for the change in the policies, perspectives and processes of the other development stakeholders around them, the government, private and nongovernment agencies. In DHANs understanding of Community Radio, the content generated by the community can become a key engine for development; as it is a tool that can build on the local wisdom, community based methods and processes. Change focused content produced by CRS should be grounded on the basics of development discussed at the beginning. The CRSs in Nagapattinam and Kottampatty are following a unique process of generating local content with the support of the social infrastructure that has already been created in the form of federation of women SHGs, Farmers and Fishermen (fig 2). It reinforces the need for an organised platform to promote dialogue and generate needs for content.

Programming Plan
Fig 2. Production and Dissemination of Content

Staff

Voluntee

The content prioritised by the community varies from context to context. While the Communities in Nagapattinam required audio content related to cyclones and marine based livelihoods, the farmers in Kottampatty required content relevant to droughts

Prioritization

Manag

and floods, tanks and tank based livelihoods. The need assessment workshops organised by the staff under the guidance of the Professionals of DHAN help generate an exhaustive list of programme areas. The Management committee at the federation level help in prioritizing the areas and the staff and volunteers prepare production plan. However the formats for presentation are left to the creativity of the volunteers (mostly students and young men and women) and the staff. In our experience following variety of presentation formats were followed buy the CRS in Kottampatty as well as Nagapattinam. Features Interviews Reporting events and cases Stories and experiences Readings Local announcements Discussions and debates Radio drama Talks / narratives Local music and songs Jingles

Producing Content Production is done in three methods depending on the availability of equipment, distance from the production centre and financial resources available for production. Method 1: A well equipped audio production theatre established in Kottampatty, a block town where the people have easy access to travel. Most of the arranged programmes such as talks, interviews, songs, music and readings are made in the theatre. Method 2: Each VIC has a provision of a mini mixer and a microphone connected with a computer and an amplifier. The VICs which are primarily meant for offering internet based services are also used as production facility, wherein the people/producers are invited to the centre for recording. Live announcements are done there itself. Some of the programmes are recorded and transferred to the main studio in Kottampatty after a first level editing for further editing. Method 3: Field recording is done using voice recorders in the areas where there is a difficulty in bringing producers to the VIC or theatre at Kottampatty. Mostly event coverages, spot commentaries and interviews are done in this method. Disseminating Content In Kottampatty, programmes are narrowcasted through the public address systems fixed over Village Information Centres in 20 villages covering about 10,000

populations. Flexible timings of narrowcasting is decided after consulting the villagers for avoiding disturbances to their other works (e.g. school and exam times). A typical scheme of narrowcasting is given in the table 2. Table 2: Programme schedule in Vayalagam Samuga Vanoli Time 10 AM 11 AM Content / format Thirukural with explanation by VIC operators Live announcements Village events and meetings Birth day wishes, Wedding wishes PDS announcement Panchayat announcements Announcements for SHG, Farmers groups Weather information Pre recorded programme Speeches and debates, Agriculture and animal husbandry Stories, Health information, Tips for students, youth etc. Vayalagam Vanoli Programme made by/with communities Best practices by farmers, entrepreneurs New initiatives Traditional practices Folk music, songs and stories Festivals, celebrations Women and children Health and education etc. Duration 15 Min 15 Min

5 PM

30 Min

6 PM

60 Min

Exchanging Content While the Community Radios offer ample opportunity for making localised contents that suits the social, cultural and linguistic characteristics of the defined geography, there exists opportunities for the two or more CRSs to exchange their contents. In the context of globalizing media, among the communities who live similar lives and have similar issues can very well connect with each other to share their content, expertise and experiences. There are initiatives by national and international networks that are promoting such exchanges. In our case the Kalanjiam Community Radio in Nagapattinam and the Vayalagam Community Radio in Kottampatty, Madurai, both are sharing the same context of disaster vulnerability. The former could share many of their audio content except a few areas that are related to marine ecosystem to the latter. However while exchanging contents care needs to be taken to ensure that they share similar contexts, culture, and language, and moreover relevant to the purpose for which it was made. By sharing content, CRSs can increase the impact of their work

and reach new audiences, collaborate with each other for joint productions, learn new formats, and bring diversity to the programmes.

Contents on local needs: Kalanjiam Community Radio Experience

The focus of the Kalanjiam and Vayalagam Community Radios is disaster preparedness. Disaster preparedness depends more on how information and services will be facilitated before, during and after the disasters. Community radio programming addresses local information and community needs that revolve around disaster preparedness, livelihoods, local best practices, women and children, health, education and farming. The Federation is getting prepared to apply for a license to broadcast under the new licensing policy guidelines issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The Kalanjiam Community Radio has made so far 2032: 35 minutes of programme of varying types and areas as detailed in the table 3. Table 3: Areas of Programming: Kalanjiam Samuga Vanoli

Sl No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Content Thirukural Health Agriculture Children Women & SHG Disaster Mitigation Governance Livelihoods Education Culture Awareness General Folks & Songs Total production

No. of Programmes

Duration
3:21:23 20:01:24 18:11:57 25:45:26 9:51:37 4:36:40 5:54:49 6:28:45 7:44:23 5:22:46 3:44:26 15:18:52 8:45:08 135:07:36

376 433 164 533 97 32 27 49 70 29 33 353 221 2417

Fig 3. Typology of Programmes

Kural 6% 2% 11% 3% 4% 6% 5% 4% 3% 7% 20% 13% Health 16% Agriculture Children Women & SHG Disaster Mitigation Governance Livelihoods Education Culture Awareness General Folks & Songs

The Chart (Fig 3) shows that women, agriculture and health are the major areas of programming, which is more of best practices in existing sea and land based livelihoods. Similarly programming for Children was 20 percent of the total duration of programmes produced. Traditional health practices, local culture and folk songs were the major areas of programming to fulfill the demands of the communities generated during need assessment.

Learnings from our Experience: Content for Change

The impacts of globalization of media on the consumers in the developing and under developed countries are devastating. The people are subjected to a staggering amount of information every day. Due to the proliferation of electronic media, the average Indian spends several years of their lifetime watching TV, listening to music, surfing the internet, and playing video games. The CR Movement in India should build processes and mechanisms in generating, producing and disseminating content that can transform the communities who were traditionally kept away from the ambit of media into media creators, users and owners.

Passive Listeners

Active Contributors

Owners

In order to create change, the CRS should assume certain roles and take up certain Roles Self governance responsibilities so as to create change in the individuals and societies. These 3Rs Media literacy should be built around the values of self governance and self management. Accelerating development
Redefining and ensuring entitlements

Rights
Freedom of Expression Collective ownership Access and Control over ICT Entitlements over social, economic, cultural and political rights

Responsibilities
Self Management Self Regulation Accountability Transparency

Fig 4: Roles, Rights and Responsibilities of the CRS & Communities

The transformation can happen only when the communities start thinking critically about news, entertainment, and advertisements, asking questions such as "on whom they are targeting?", "what interests does it stands for?", and "what techniques are they applying to persuade the intended audience?" The content that the CRS produce should be able to create awareness among the communities to look for what is needed for them, what is not there and what kind of impacts certain messages, viewpoints and perspectives can create. The content that the communities make through their CRS should enable them to place it into a larger context of development. This means facilitating them to understand the structures and realities that affect their development, freedom of choice, inter relatedness and quality of life, ultimately leading into collective empowerment.

Challenges in ensuring Content

No doubt, the Community Radios have the potential to create conditions that provide people with access to useful information, and ways for people to express their sentiments, opinions, views, aspirations, strengths and their ideas for development. It can support the communities to build consensus on their development priorities. However there are few challenges to facilitate the communities to move from producers to owners of the Community Radio. Ensuring a strong focus on "local" news, music, events, people and issues especially coupled with "global" relevance. Exploring, identifying and cultivating new talents and building capacity of the local communities and volunteers to enhance their ability to adapt, getting acquainted with the tools and technology that are available at free or affordable costs.

Building institutionalised linkages with the mainstream agencies that are involved in disaster management, to provide legitimate and localised information on disasters. Meetings costs of content production and capacity building for the staff, volunteers and communities is a major challenge in the initial phase, while the CRS is still working towards meeting running costs. A proven model needs to emerge to meet this challenge. Access and use of materials that are copy righted. The CRS stands for non commercial broadcasting may not be able to afford to the royalties to be paid for the copyrighted materials. Content exchange among the non-commercial broadcasters needs more focus.

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Building Capacity of the communities to make relevant contents

The Kalanjiam Community Radio Station jointly with district disaster preparedness training unit organised a training programme with 40 Community members from five villages of the Keelaiyur block. They were trained on disaster and its types and how to respond in a disaster situation, doing basic search and rescue. They were also taught on steps to be taken in a distress situation. The participants were shown how tackle fire accident and different rescue methods. It was followed by training on First Aid and follow up. A practical manual on disaster management was distributed to the village information centers and community leaders attended the training programme. After the programme, a series of audio programmes were prepared by the participants who were trained in the workshop.

Community Radio content to facilitate exchange of local expertise

Karunanidhi a small farmer from Vizhundhamavadi village of Nagapattinam district, in Tamil Nadu has been growing a new variety of Chedi Murungai (Annual Drumstick) and earning a good profit from it. Growing annual drumstick was some thing new to the villagers nearby. Community Radio Volunteer Vetri came to know this in one of the need assessment workshops and approached him for an interview. He prepared a radio programme on it and narrowcasted through the Kalanjiam Samuga Vanoli with his contact information. After the programme, many people approached Karunanidhi to know how to cultivate and market it. Karunanidhi in addition to sharing his experience, he helped them to get about 300 seeds and 150 seedlings to neighboring farmers. Now, many farmers in nearby villages are growing Chedi Murangai and enjoying the benefits.

Community Radio to provide platform for the youths

Sowmya, 20 years, is a drop out from school after higher secondary education due to poverty in her family. She was working in a textile showroom in Nagapattinam as a sales girl. When contacted by her friend Padma who is working in the Kalanjiam Samuga Vanoli, she reluctantly agreed to become a community radio volunteer. Her association in the Community Radio transformed her outlook not only about herself, but also on the village she lives. She is the one who has made the highest number of programmes among other volunteers and she feels proud about it. She says I am respected in my village now and happy about listening their feedbacks. Now I could feel importance of my work and I am getting excitement every day by doing new work and meeting new people.

Community Radio to preserve local talents

The boy stretches his neck to reach the microphone that dangles in front of him. But that does not break the enthusiasm. He eagerly narrates the story of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves. This young storyteller comes from a rural village near Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu. He is one of the many talents, staff and volunteers, who help in creating a very unusual radio programme for an unusual radio station Kalanjiam Samuga Vanoli. He was brought to the station by Porkodi, a Radio Volunteer. She and her colleagues know how to spot interesting topics, to do interviews, to edit and also how to narrate a programme. Every day they go out on field assignments to collect new audio material. The topics range from agriculture, health, education, issues around Self Help Groups, events around festivals up to disaster preparedness

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Your neighbors voice:

Reducing vulnerability to disasters through community radio
19 December 2008 by Elizabeth Stevens
As Oxfam wraps up its work related to the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, it is helping ensure that partners and communities have the skills and resources they need to continue the important work of reducing the risk of future disasters. Oxfam has funded a new research center in India that develops pilot programs on risk reduction to complement ongoing development work aimed at reducing poverty.

Manoj Prabakars radio address on water management is delivered flawlessly, and when he steps out of the studio, he is congratulated warmlyespecially by his grandmother, who puts her arms around him. Manoj is 13, and his audience is the village of Mangalamapatti, India. The studio is an information centera single room that serves about a hundred purposes for five communities, and the machine used for sound editing is the only computer in town. This is community radio, where a village fashions the programs it wants and needs, and fast-talking DJs and advertisers need not apply.

Diverting floods and planting trees

The Advanced Center for Enabling Disaster Risk Reduction (ACEDRR) of the Dhan Foundation, an Oxfam partner, has helped launch a pilot community radio project to serve around 100,000 people in rural settlements of Madurai district, because they see its potential in improving disaster response and risk reduction at the village level. When emergencies like floods and fires strike remote communities, its friends and neighbors who are the first responders. Notifying a village quickly of an emergency in a neighboring community can make all the difference in how effectively help is mobilized. And localized weather and flood forecasts can help natural hazards from becoming community disasters. If we get information about rain upstream, we will take some precautions says Sethurajan, a farmer whose community has a reservoir for irrigation purposes. Well open the sluices to divert the flood; well cut off the big bunds to divert the route so excess water can be drained off. But in communities that struggle with the everyday disaster of poverty, anything from a poor crop to the loss of a farm animal to a serious illness can create a household emergency, so villagers are eager for information about anything and everything that can improve the security and well-being of their families. Men seem enthusiastic about radio shows on outbreaks of livestock diseases and on the latest agricultural techniques. One suggests that local radio could help revive kudi maramaithu, the ancient practice of careful community maintenance of the village reservoir and water works. Women, says a radio enthusiast named Vijia, like programs about health, legal matters, and the importance of tree planting. We get a lot of information about our daily lives, she says. As women, we are happy about that.

Radio: its practical

The radio is a medium that ensures that almost everyone has access to information, no matter what their age and reading level. Im illiterate, but Im learning so much, says Manojs grandmother Podaiamma. Although televisions here are widespreadgifts from the state to households in even the smallest, poorest villages of Tamil Nadu theyre not as practical as radios in that you have to stop what youre doing to watch TV. With radio, says Sethurajan, we can keep on working.

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Young women take the lead