Hyderabad: The University of Hyderabad (UoH) has partnered with the Election Commission of India (ECI) to spread awareness among voters and promote electoral literacy through community radios around the country ahead of the forthcoming election season.
In a project called Festival of Democracy, about 50 community broadcasters from 25 stations across the country will assemble in Hyderabad for a three-day workshop commencing from February 22. They will hold brainstorming sessions on key themes and strategise on how to leverage the local, community character of community radio to spread voter awareness.
Prof. Vinod Pavarala, who heads the Unesco chair on Community Media at UoH, explained that after the capacity-building workshop in Hyderabad, participants would return to their stations and make about 100 hours of radio programmes collectively on a set of common themes related to voter education in over 10 different languages including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odiya, Punjabi, Telugu, and Urdu.
The plan is also for the chosen 25 community radio stations to share their content with two other stations in their respective regions, taking the coverage to a total of about 75 stations and their sizeable listenership. The UNESCO Chair at UoH would support the production and also closely monitor the content that would be aired on these community radio stations.
