गुरुवार, 9 फ़रवरी 2012

Live, from rural village

In such a calendar filled world, we don’t normally build curiosity about news coverage in other countries, especially the developing ones. Here, everyone gets their news coverage by a click of a button right at his or her television or computer screen. However, how do villages in rural and remote areas get their news? Don’t they have the privilege to know and understand what is going on, if not in the world, in their own country?
Appan Samachar, meaning “Our News” in Hindi, is a just one example of rural and remote villages obtaining the technology to start a news coverage channel. It is an all women village news network. In the simplest terms, a news channel organized by women of villages, focusing on topics of development issues, child marriage, public health, environmental issues, etc. This non-governmental organization (NGO) uses a generator to supply power to a projector and other equipment, where villagers can watch in their local markets.
In the United States and other developed countries, news broadcasts and the flow of information is something that can be taken for granted. We have never seen a day without news. However, step out of our world and there is a world of developing and underdeveloped nations like the sub-Saharan nations, India, China, countries in South America, etc. For these countries, it can seem impossible to imagine a system of electronic or even paper-based journalism.
So what seems to us as very elementary and unattractive is something revolutionary for the people of these regions who are still decades away from a pizzazz filled world.
A news channel that started out with just 3 girls cycling around to gather news, has now ended up with two-dozen girls working with Appan Samachar as journalists. Raising the voices of women throughout rural and remote villages.
Have you ever thought on how these rural villages obtain their news coverage?

-  Susana Coba, WordPress.com




कोई टिप्पणी नहीं: