Good Morning, Chennai

IN Community Media | 20/04/2008

                              Women¿s Feature Service

When Meenakshi, 28, tuned in to the radio, it was only to lighten her daily drudgery of washing dishes and clothes. However, just by accident, the young housewife heard the strains of 107.8 MHz. "It was the dialect that caught my attention. The voice on air sounded different. The woman on the radio was speaking ¿slum¿ Tamil, unlike the anglicised Tamil common on the FM channel," she recounts. Meenakshi lives with her husband and three children in a one-room shanty in Chennai¿s Teynampet slum.

The female voice on the radio reminded listeners about the polio vaccination drive being conducted in the city that day and of the deformities that a polio attack can lead to. "I wound up the washing and dragged my children to locate a polio camp," admits Meenakshi, now a loyal listener of ¿Penne Nee Arivaai¿(Lady,You Should Know). ¿Penne Nee Arivaai¿ is a community radio programme broadcast thrice a day by M.O.P. Vaishnav College for Women, Chennai.

Launched in March 2005, the M.O.P. Vaishnav¿s community FM is the country¿s second community radio station, after Anna FM at Chennai¿s Anna University. The service spans out to several schools and colleges, in addition to a few slums and health centres falling within a radius of four to five kilometres of the M.O.P. campus. "Community radio works because it addresses specific communities," observes senior journalist Anjali Sircar.

And the team of college girls at M.O.P. FM perfectly understands its audience, as proven by the stock of characters the students mimic on air for ¿Penne Nee Arivaai¿ and other programmes. Keeping in mind the target community - women in the slums around the M.O.P. campus that spans just a little less than three acres - S. Niveetha, a third-year student of B.Com (Bachelors of Commerce) speaks up as ¿Mallika¿ the flower vendor. She is joined by A. Vaidehi who, off air pursues an electronic media course, but is known as ¿Idly kadai¿ Muniamma (literally ¿Idli Shop Muniamma¿!) on the airwaves. Then there Kuppamma, the vegetable vendor, who outside the recording studio is first-year economics student, S. Uma.

Interestingly, through their programme, the students - who are in the age group of 16 to 22 years and include both under-graduates and post-graduates - bring alive characters who could be residents of the neighbouring slums and with whom real women like Meenakshi can identify. But first they thoroughly research for their shows by speaking to doctors, welfare organizations and NGOs.

And, at times, the broadcasters also rope in real slum residents such as Saroja, 30; D. Ramani, 42; and Kavitha, 36; to share their homespun expertise on topics such as child rearing and health on air. "Our primary focus has been to facilitate women¿s empowerment," says Vijaya  Thiruvengadam, former director, All India Radio, Chennai, who was roped in by the college to shape its community radio service.

Each M.O.P. broadcast lasts for three hours and there are three broadcasts everyday - between 6:30 am and 9:30 am, 12:30 pm and 3:30 pm, and 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm. Each programme lasts for 15 minutes.

But it is not just the slum dwellers that these talented girls have been involving in their daily shows. They have been speaking to NGO representatives, and even taken to the streets to monitor and spread the word on traffic rules despite the scorching heat of Chennai. They regularly talk about the need to wear helmets and also outline traffic rules to be followed to ensure safety.

When this writer went visiting M.O.P.¿s radio station, P. Chandrasekharan, Secretary, Tamil Nadu Foundation, was in the studio recounting an incident where the NGO has intervened when a young girl in a rural school failed to appear for her school final exams. "She had been a good student and so we went to her house to inquire and we found the girl all dressed up to be betrothed. Only when the teachers took up the cause and threatened police action did the family send the girl to write her exams," he said. For the M.O.P. Vaishnav girls such interviews are eye-openers and a reminder of the restrictive environment in which the girls in rural India live. "And when we talk to the NGOs, we make sure to get the beneficiaries to speak out on air too," says Thiruvengadam. 

Concerns like HIV/AIDS are dealt with, too. "Classroom instructions can be embarrassing. But anonymous radio discussions are effective, especially when it is a case of the youth talking to the youth," observes Srinidhi Sampath, a counsellor.

Another popular programme is the educational broadcast for visually-challenged students, produced by the Dehradun-based National Institute of Visually Handicapped (NIVH), and recorded at Chennai¿s Rotary Helen Keller Talking Book Library. "The programme has made a definite difference to our exam preparations," says K. Muniappan, President, Blind Students¿ Association in Chennai.

In addition to community interaction, the M.O.P. radio service is also used as a tool to communicate on campus. Incredible as it may seem most students, at some point of time, do go on air. Some like Saranya Easwaran are regular Radio Jockeys (RJs) and also double up as programme producers. "I plan to continue after graduation," she smiles. "We have good fun," adds R. Padmapriya, a first-year electronic media student.

The college has invested in a sound-proof recording room, a high-tech 54-channel amplifier, and even expensive Nuendo software used for recording. The recurring costs amount to about Rs 1,00,000 a year (US$1=Rs 40), estimates Thiruvengadam. "The college management has been generous with funds. The Department of Science and Technology has given us a monetary grant of Rs 11,00,000 this year, towards the using of community radio to promote scientific temper among women," says Dr K. Nirmala Prasad, Principal, M.O.P. Vaishnav. "The community radio service is actually just an extension of our college¿s social initiative policy. Our girls had been going to the slums earlier as well. Students studying nutrition teach the women of Badrikarai slum to prepare nutritious low cost meals, while our entrepreneurship cell has helped women find better employment. For instance, our girls have taught bouquet flower arrangement to flower vendors there, which has helped them earn better," he elaborates.

Voices on M.O.P. FM have been touching lives. According to a survey conducted in July last year by the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), 53 per cent of the 1,000 women surveyed in the slums within the five kilometre radius of the campus, tuned in to M.O.P. FM, particularly the ¿Penne Nee Arivaai¿ programme.

As Chandrasekharan puts it, "They are creating small ripples and, at the very least, the college students are getting to know the real world, discuss serious issues, and seek answers." They will eventually find solutions, too.