Dear Sajan
Thanks a lot for this reference. Even as I write this mail, I am listening to
Sangham Radio. And my heart swells with pride for the way the two young who
have had no formal schooling and have been farm workers when they should have
been in school and come from very low income families and have lived in utter
poverty during their formative days are handling their radio. It sounds near
professional to me. Of course there are some rough edges but I have immense
faith in their capability to iron out these as they go along.
It is also a fantastic feeling that their issues, language and content are so
very refreshingly different from the trash served by the mainstream media. This
also makes me so hopeful and optimistic that more and more of community radios
will clean up our media environment and retrieve it for our communities. This
is in a manner of speaking will be an ecological cleansing of the highly
polluted media scene that increasingly is for the elite, by the elite and of
the elite. And a mirror of uttter ignorance and hype.
After I quit mainstram media about 25 years ago, I have never felt so hopeful.
with warm regards
--- On Tue, 28/10/08, sajan venniyoor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: sajan venniyoor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [cr-india] India's first female Dalit radio makes waves
To: "CR India" <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, 28 October, 2008, 7:59 AM
India's first female Dalit radio makes waves
26 Oct 2008, Roli Srivastava, Times News
Networkhttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Indias_first_female_Dalit_radio_makes_waves/articleshow/3641458.cms
HYDERABAD: Algole Narsamma makes for an unusual reporter. Every morning at 10,
she starts her journey to various villages in search of stories that are
neither breaking news nor juicy snippets that sell. But the 25-year-old mother
of two says she is always sure her reports strike a chord with listeners every
time they are aired.
Algole is a producer at 90.4 FM, the radio channel started "by Dalit women,
for Dalit women". It's making waves not only in her village, Machnoor, but
nationally. Algole's reports on farming tools, and folk songs are a hit in
Zaheerabad, where most women her caste toil in the fields. The audience base
has been expanding in the 11 days the channel has existed. Many listeners are
even buying FM-enabled cellphones to catch the station.
About 70 villages in the Medak district of Andhra Pradesh have been tuning
into India's first female Dalit community radio. Every night at 8, the channel
airs a one-and-a-half hour package of local news and views, tidbits on herbal
medicines for animals and folk songs and stories.
This all-woman, all-Dalit Sangham (community) radio station, which boasts the
signature tune, 'akka chillelu kudi podame (come sisters, let us go to the
sangham radio)', is seen as the first 'audible' voice of the state's Dalit
women. Algole claims the station "represents" over 5,000 women. Her studio
partner General Narsamma doubles as reporter and jockey. She has studied to
Class 10 and is adept at the computer, editing programmes before they are
aired.
The station is an initiative of the Deccan Development Society (DDS), an NGO
that works with 100 groups of the poorest Dalit women. "They still earn Rs
10-15 for six to eight hours of work," says DDS director PV Satheesh. The low
incomes are a reflection of Zaheerabad's poor land, which offers limited
livelihood opportunities in agriculture. There is hardly any industrialization,
and development plans do not reach the targeted populations. This is why Kancha
Ilaiah, one of the state's best known campaigners on Dalit issues, is elated at
the news. He says the radio can even generate new struggles. For instance,
domestic abuse is no longer news but if they air a case of the wife resisting
her husband's violence, women will be empowered.
The station has already received a congratulatory note from the upper-caste
sarpanch. But the best feedback so far is from those it's meant to serve. One
listener asked if her children could work as reporters. Another felt proud to
be interviewed by the radio. "I always heard others," she said. "Now I hear my
voice, my views. I too will be recognized some day."
Satheesh and others point out that the radio station was possible because
Dalit women in the area are used to working outside the home. "Most women who
joined self-help groups were Dalit. Their mobility was never a problem," says P
Prasanthi, programme director of the AP Mahila Samatha Society, a part of the
government's Mahila Samakhya Programme. She may have a point. Sixteen women
have already volunteered to get stories for the radio station.
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