Rural women getting ready to make a change
As many as 23 women undergo training in radio programmes
Sujatha Jogi, a middle aged tailor cum house wife from Bajal was at St Aloysius College for the last six days. Sorry, this time not for a degree, but to learn to produce programmes for radio.
As many as 23 women from the rural areas in and around Mangalore participated in a preparatory workshop of Baseline survey and capacity building at St Aloysius College organised by Community Radio Sarang. The one-week long training programme was started on December 12. The workshop gave a hand on experience to the women to make programmes for radio and to conduct surveys in different part of the rural population to find out their problems. The training includes theory classes as well as practical and field work.
The programme was organised as a part of a nation-wide programme ‘Science for women’s health and nutrition’ funded by the Department of Science and Technology of Government of India. The programme was launched for the first time in the year 2005-06. Karthik Panchapakesan from the Commonwealth Education and Media Centre for Asia and Film making trainer Abdul Rahman Pasha were the resource persons for the programme.
The objective of the programme is to address the women’s health and nutrition issues through community radio. A total of nine community radio stations across India have been selected for the programme.
In Karnataka, apart from Radio Sarang in Mangalore, one more radio station from Gulbarga has been selected for the project.
Speaking to Deccan Herald, one of the resource person, Karthik Panchapakesan said that the aim of the project is to empower society using the women to spread awareness programmes. “Woman is the backbone of the family. If awareness is created among women, then they will create awareness among the family members and in turn among the society,” he said.
Community Radio Sarang Director Dr Richard Rego said that women who are active listeners of community radio and who are really interested to work in this field are selected for the training. “Women hailing from different communities are participating in the programme. They could address the problem as well as do survey of their own community very effectively, when compared to others. Women from Ullal, Bajal, Harekala etc participated in the programme which is really an encouragement for us”, he said. The women went for a three day field work and conducted survey. “We got an opportunity to know how to make programmes for radio and how to talk for radio”, said one of the participants Sujatha Jogi.
The team will also come out with different programmes in community radio addressing different issues based on the surveys conducted.
They will also go to the rural mass and conduct different shows for the house wives, students etc.
