VOICES

VOICES works on the following:

• Producing and supporting community radio:
  
  • The community audio production centre called Our Voice (Namma Dhwani).
  • Publications including the India Country Strategy Paper for Community Radio; a Kannada version of UNESCO's Community Radio Handbook ('Samudaya Radio Kaipidi'); and "The Voice of the People", is a comprehensive manual on the rationale for, nature of, and establishment of community radio.
  • Workshops and consultations including Kathmandu Consultation (organised by the Institute of Development Studies, UK and PANOS), community radio workshop at Garhwal for local youth, and community media workshops on radio and print at Kolar and Bangladore for 15 grassroots development workers.
• Creating communication material like newsletters, films, and audio tapes for other development organisations. Many of these efforts focus on reaching men and women with disabilities.
• Promoting awareness about development issues by generating media coverage of issue-based events and activities concerning food security, farmers' rights, the rights of people with disabilities, and underprivileged children.
• Producing a magazine, Voices for Change, and an infokit called Knowing for Ourselves (designed for health workers to educate both men and women at the grassroots level on reproductive health and contraceptive options).
• Developing communications networks and initiatives including these selected examples:
  
  • Initiating an e-group for the Network of Women in Media, Bangladore (NWMB)
  • Supporting the white ribbon campaign initiated by the Bangalore Initiative for Peace (June 2002).
  • Producing and disseminating four film spots - Public Service Messages for Peace - in the context of communal violence in Gujarat (May 2002).
  • Producing a music video on the theme of women's empowerment for Hengasara Hakkina Sangha, an organisation working with women and the law (February 2002).
  • Publishing ICHAP report for the India Canada Collaborative HIV/AIDS Project (September 2001).
  • Coordinating events, like a public discussion in association with Artists for All and Madhyam on the theme, "Disinvestment in the Arts - Can the State abdicate its responsibility?" (April 2002) and the Echoes of the World Sacred Music Festival (March 2002).
  • Working with international volunteers through I-to-I (UK) contacts online and the English departments of local colleges.
  • Advocating significant issues in development through mainstream media like New Indian Express (Sunday Express), with a focus on disabilities, folk art, the rights of the elderly, food security, and hunger.
• Training in Information Technology and Empowerment, Radio Resources, Media and Human Development, Disability and Radio, and Women in Journalism, among other topics.

Rights, Agriculture, Children, Youth, Environment, Health, Economic Development, Women, Disability.

VOICES, a unit of Madhyam Communications (a registered non-profit trust), was set up eight years ago as a development communications organisation working towards the empowerment of the disadvantaged and marginalised sections of society.