Our Media work covers two broad areas – facilitating participatory content development and policy work on increasing access to media
Participatory Content Development
Maraa works closely with Commonwealth Of Learning, Vancouver, Canada, in building capacities of communities across the country to develop participatory communication campaigns around relevant health issues. We are piloting the Community Learning programme on maternal and reproductive health for Mullaheda Village, in Gurgaon District, in partnership with Gurgaon Ki Awaaz – a community radio station licensed to The Restoring Force. The primary participants in this programme will be local women and adolescent girls – who will be involved in planning, designing, production and broadcasting of the programme.
Simultaneously, we are also building capacities of 10-12 community radio stations in the Hindi speaking belt of the country, (through face to face training and long distance mentoring) to enable them to build their own participatory media campaigns around health issues which are relevant for their communities.
Media Policy – Infrastructure and Access
Maraa is supported by Ford Foundation to work with community radio sector in India – with emphasis on access to spectrum for the sector. On one hand, community radio stations do not have enough spectrum, especially in urban areas. On the other hand, these radio stations also need access to internet and mobile telephony spectrum to maximize and enhance the impact of their work. On both levels, there is a need for policy advocacy, which is informed by research based evidence providing that current models of providing access are not working in remote, rural and hilly areas of the country.
Apart from this project, Maraa is also engaged in policy advocacy on other media issues – especially those related to access through infrastructure. We are especially interested in developing our work further in the areas of access to infrastructure in broadcasting and telecommunications. The access to infrastructure question is relevant in terms of direct and substantive access to spectrum as well as mediated access through private or public service providers.
Please follow our Blog section, where regular updates will be provided on an ongoing basis for both aspects of our media work.