Background
During the last two decades, significant development efforts implemented in many regions of India have had positive effects on the living standards of the country's population. That said, these development efforts have also highlighted an increasing polarity between the country's poor and those who have most benefited from India's recent strong economic growth. With heavy concentrations of development activities taking place in urban areas, people in rural areas are being left behind. Poverty is on the decline in India, with 30% of the population living below the poverty line (USD 1 per day) today compared to 50% in 1970's. That said, the States of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh together comprise half of India's poor. Additionally, this increasing gap between the living standards of urban dwelling Indians and those who live in rural areas correlates with an increasingly disproportionate gap between the living standards of different castes and scheduled tribes such as those living in hilly areas in the north. And although India has a burgeoning IT sector and is one of the most prolific centers for media production worldwide, there are many parts of India where communities remain without reliable access to important development information.

Equal Access' innovative radio and outreach projects in India empower Nepali migrants in Mumbai, rural villagers in the remote state of Uttarakhand and street children in Delhi to improve their lives. Equal Access' India program is implemented in partnership with Ideosync Media Combine, an Indian not-for-profit development communications group.

Safe Migration Radio and Outreach Program - Mumbai, India
To increase awareness and knowledge of sexually transmitted infections among high-risk Nepali migrants in Mumbai, At Home and Abroad (Desh Pardesh), our Safe Migration Initiative produced in partnership with Family Health International, reduces HIV transmission by encouraging Nepali migrants to attend health clinics to hear the adventures of Narendra - a young Nepali migrant to India. As the only place to hear Nepali language satellite broadcasts in a foreign city, migrants travel over two hours to come to the health clinics/youth drop-in centers to gain emotional support from listening to "postcards" recordings from villages near their homes in western Nepal and through discussions with trained facilitators after each broadcast. Our Safe Migration Initiative reported an increase in youth migrants seeking medical advice at the drop-in centers because of their interest in coming to listen to the weekly broadcasts of At Home and Abroad. Listeners were less inhibited to talk about sexuality and AIDS, and increased their use of condoms.

Community Radio is Your Radio - Uttaranchal, India
In the hilly northern India state of Uttarakhand, access to outside information is no longer scarce through our collaboration with UNESCO. After participating in workshops to learn script-writing, editing, and technical radio production skills, women, men and youth from several communities collectively design and produce radio programs that address relevant issues in their community. While producing dozens of episodes about health issues, women's empowerment, environment, youth issues, agriculture, education and tourism, each community defines and addresses their own needs-ensuring that the programs are targeted to realities at the grassroots level. After each broadcast via satellite to community discussion groups in Uttarakhand, trained leaders facilitate group discussions around the messages heard on the radio program to catalyze community responses to these issues.

Community radio via satellite is crucial for overcoming misconceptions and rumors in rural India. For instance, after several women returned from urban areas and reported that women there no longer wore sindoor (the color vermillion), which is traditionally worn in Uttarakhand after marriage, a rumor began to spread that the dye used to produce sindoor was actually a poisonous acid that would cause wives to die before their husbands. Recently, when an Indian woman who had been listening to Community Radio is Your Radio realized the rumor was based on superstition and fear, rather than facts, she used an Equal Access radio broadcast to convince the entire community that the old tradition was safe. Illustrating the legitimacy ascribed to what is heard on the radio the incident strongly convinced the woman of the power of community radio to transform lives in Uttarakhand.

Women are especially empowered through these new tools of communication, claiming a larger voice within the community and talking to each other on a much larger scale than ever before. Equal Access ensures that women comprise a large portion of the groups and, along with men, feel real ownership of the project.

One woman from Uttarakhand said, "I think I will have to distribute sweets at the satellite broadcast launch... we have been waiting to show the community that the recordings we were doing will be broadcast and this is our deliverance. And now we cannot eat, drink or sleep without Community Radio. It has become so much a part of our lives."

Our Voices, Our Radio Youth Radio Training Initiative - Delhi, India
Our Voices, Our Radio Youth Radio Training Initiative, a part of the Butterflies SARI- Q Equity program, funded by AED, provides basic radio production training to over 50 street children and child laborers from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Building employable skills and equipped with valuable tools for expressing themselves, youth produce radio segments that address issues relevant to their lives. Translated and broadcast via satellite, the programs allow youth to share their thoughts and ideas with peers across the region for the first time.

For more information on Equal Access; current activities in India please contact Ms. Venu Arora, South Asia Regional Coordinator at varora@equalaccess.org