COVID-19 awareness: Radio and WhatsApp breaking language barriers in Assam tea gardens, riverine villages

Proper awareness of safety measures is a must to avoid Coronavirus infection. But language is a barrier for thousands of poor and illiterate people living inside Assam's tea gardens and in riverine villages.

Radio Brahmaputra, community radio is trying to break that barrier through radio programmes in their mother tongues and also using social media like WhatsApp to reach out to more and more ethnic communities. "Since many of them, mostly women still do not understand the Assamese language, we are translating the contents of WHO and health department about Coronavirus into Sadri language for those living inside tea gardens in Dibrugarh and into Mising, Hajong, Deori and Banai language for residents in the remote riverine villages in Dhemaji district.

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Then we are making some radio spots of 30 to 50 seconds and airing them. This has helped us spread awareness about the threat of Coronavirus, how it spreads and how we can avoid infection by maintaining social distancing and hygiene practice," Bhaskarjyoti Bhuyan, station head of Radio Brahmaputra told DH on Saturday.

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A community radio normally cover listeners within 10 to 15-km radius but Radio Brahmaputra has managed to reach out to those up to 30-kms inside eight big tea gardens in Dibrugarh in eastern Assam and the Mising, Deori, and Hajong communities living in riverine areas in North Assam's Dhemaji district. "Most riverine villages do not have electricity connection even today, so they don't have a TV at home. They don't read newspapers either. We try to reach out to those people through entertainment and at the same time create awareness on public health issues," Bhuyan said.

Assam has reported no COVID 19 positive case so far but the state government is working on war footing to spread awareness and prevent the spread of the deadly virus. Tea gardens are an important focus area of such awareness as nearly 20 lakh people lives in colonies inside 850 big tea gardens. Dibrugarh is one of the four districts having a maximum number of tea gardens.

"The response so far has been very good. Nearly 50 people responded in one hour to our quiz programme on COVID 19 recently. Since most of the households inside tea gardens now possess smartphones, we decided to take the help of WhatsApp and forward the audio clippings of our radio awareness programme to our volunteers there. In this way, we are reaching out to more and more people," Bhuyan said.

Radio Brahmaputra, which received its license in 2015 have also been trying to spread awareness about nutrition, child marriage, right to education and other healthcare issues. "We also started a folk music competition, where budding artists belonging to tea garden communities are taking part. This has increased the popularity of our radio and we are taking advantage of that to spread awareness about Coronavirus now," Bhuyan said.

"But fund is a constraint for us as we don't get much advertisement from the government," he added.