WUNRN
NEPAL - COMMUNITY LISTENER
PARTICIPATION RADIO FOCUSES ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN & HIV/AIDS
March 21,
2011- Samajhdari
(meaning "Mutual Understanding") is a 30-minute weekly radio
programme produced by Equal Access in Nepal that aims to cover the correlation
between violence against women (VAW) and HIV/AIDS from the listener's point of
view, providing discussion and advice on situations that affect real people -
in particular, women. The radio programme is designed to: instigate productive
dialogues about sex; teach women how to speak unhesitatingly and to think
critically about their rights and choices; to expose the causes, consequences,
and interconnectedness of HIV, AIDS, and VAW; and to organise collective
actions to minimise them. Equal Access estimates that Samajhdari has 1 million
regular listeners.
Communication Strategies: Every programme begins with a real dilemma that a listener has faced. These dilemmas have much to do with both violence against women and HIV/AIDS - such as, "I am a sex worker and if I say no to my clients' demands, they beat me. What can I do?" or "My husband forces me to have sex when I don't want to. How can I say no?" The presenter then brings in a range of voices to comment on the issue, including other listeners and experts from the field.
Twelve Equal
Access trained women community reporters go into rural areas and collect voices
from the field excerpts which are integrated into the broadcasts. These women
community reporters are all living with HIV and AIDS and/or are survivors of
violence, and this gives them an insight into the dilemmas being discussed.
The Nepalese radio show is
combined with a community outreach component, which includes 60 listening
groups, and legal literacy training for more than 1,800 women at the community
level.