The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : 50 women get FM radios

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 19, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

50 women get FM radios

Special Correspondent

Anna varsity community initiative to boost science awareness

CHENNAI: Sakthi Arivaayadi is Anna FM's year-long community radio initiative to help women from disadvantaged sections communicate science-based themes.

The Anna FM, anchored at the electronic multimedia research centre (EM2RC), targets women from Kannigapuram and Kotturpuram in south Chennai for this participatory approach.

The project is catalysed and supported by National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC), Union Department of Science and Technology.

On Monday, the Vice-Chancellor of Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University, C.V. Bhirmanandham, gifted 50 single band Anna FM radio sets to the women audiences in the two areas.

Call to women

The Anna University Vice-Chancellor, D. Viswanathan, presided over the function. Dr. Bhirmanandham urged the women to practice what they learnt from `Sakthi Arivaayadi'. He also released a CD containing 31 episodes on health awareness, broadcast as part of the project during July 2005.

The Project Director, Dr. R. Sreedher, said that the participatory community initiative aimed at disseminating scientific awareness for everyday living targeted at women listeners in the Anna FM coverage zone.

A forward study was done in May and June 2005 by student volunteers of media science course, covering 400 women at Kannigapuram and 200 at Kotturpuram to map their social, economic and educational status. Their health awareness levels were also documented.

The initiative takes the form of interviews with experts conducted by the womenfolk themselves on health-related areas. They also do skits and jingles.

Then a weekly (every Friday morning) live phone-in interactive session takes place from one of women's dwellings for a feedback on content assimilation during the earlier week.

Skits, songs

Based on this interaction, the women are invited to the Anna FM studios to present what they have gathered during the past week in the form of skits and songs with assistance from student producers. Volunteers from the Media Sciences Department at Anna University studying Masters in Electronic Media have been grouped into seven teams of four students each to produce `Sakthi Arivaayadi' each day of the week.

All these efforts were made to improve scientific awareness among the common womenfolk in the lower economic strata.

Dr. Sreedher said 12 themes would be featured during the year-long project which started in July 2005. "The programme in Tamil is on air four times a day for a duration of 15 minutes each. Health was chosen as the theme for broadcast during July 2005 on 30 different topics such as water, malaria, pre- and post-natal care, diabetes, menstrual disorders and so on ending with an episode on Yoga and Meditation. Dr. Viswanathan highlighted the responsibility of the electronic media in serving the interests of the less privileged sections of society.

He thanked the Department of Science and Technology for awarding the project to Anna University and hoped that the objectives of "Sakthi Arivaayadi" would be fulfilled. Ujjwala T. Tirkey, Scientist, NCSTC, DST, New Delhi, said that this was the first exclusive Science Project for women and hoped that the efforts being put into empower women through science awareness will succeed. Dr. K. Hemalatha, Director, Center for Empowerment of Women, Dr. G.V. Uma, Coordinator, Center for Empowerment of Women, and Neeraja Prabakar, Research Scholar, Anna University, are the co-ordinators of the project.

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