Youth Community Multimedia Centre (YCMC)

The Community Multimedia Centre (CMC) employs a number of communication strategies, including: interpersonal communication and community participation; development and broadcast of community radio and video programmes, and a combination of interactive live performances and call-in community radio programmes.

To establish the project, YCMC worked to mobilise a group of volunteers selected from different disadvantaged communities of the working area. This volunteer group was trained on developing audio and video contents on various issues. The participants bring up the issues of concern for their communities and, thus, as stated by YCMC staff, promote the voice of the voiceless. These audio and video programmes are then disseminated through the local cable operators to reach civil society, policy makers, and local political leaders and, thus, attempt to influence public opinion and generate public concern on the issues. The programmes are also used as advocacy tools in advocacy meetings, policy dialogues, and other forums.

The contents developed are needs-based, use multimedia tools and applications, and are created in such a way as to be understood even by completely illiterate people. For instance, a health information package will be developed using digital photographs, video clips, animations, audio, text, etc. For remote places where there is no cable connection, the project uses narrow casting (using loud speakers) and cassette casting (using tape recorders) in various groups and through video shows at local tea stalls (using DVD players) as well as using portable computers where cable is not available.

In addition to the audio and video programmes, volunteers produce interactive plays which explain the role of community media and place it within a realistic context for the communities addressed. According to YPSA, such plays work to raise awareness and public demand for community radio legislation. These plays are performed regularly in various rural areas of Bangladesh. However, unlike other theatre approaches which follow a one-way message delivery mechanism or which collect feedback after the performance, these plays use ICTs (radio, television, and telephone) to enable live and runtime feedback to be received. This mechanism allows viewers to express opinions during the play and change the outcome of the play. Each play, performed in the local language, begins with a story about a local issue. The first performance of the play ends with a negative conclusion. After the play, there is a radio- and telephone-enabled interactive discussion of rural problems and an explanation of how local community media can be a means by which to raise and address such issues. Then the same play is performed again, but this time the audiences have the opportunity, through a community radio station, to interrupt during the play, and change the direction of the story or demand changes in the roles of the characters. Audiences have to justify, with substantive reasons, their demands for changes, and final decisions are based on group consensus. Therefore, the community gets to determine how the story proceeds and ends, and in most cases, the negative story becomes a positive one. The YCMC has discovered that this kind of approach makes people more aware of existing local issues and practices; raises awareness about the lack of access to mainstream media; and demonstrates how local communities can use community radio and other media to change their society.

Youth, Community Media.

As a youth-focused organisation, YPSA recognises that deprived youth and adolescents in rural areas show as much potential as those in urban centers. Because rural youth have less access to information, YPSA feels that these youths should have the chance to access and benefit from ICTs to narrow the "digital gap", in order to learn more effectively and to participate more fully in an increasingly knowledge-based society.

The YCMC uses the local cable network for content dissemination, reaching about one thousand households in Sitakund. In the future, the YCMC plans to set up loudspeakers directly from the studio.

The YCMC in Sitakund developed out of a United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-supported network on ICT innovations for poverty reduction, part of a cross-cutting theme on the eradication of poverty.