The radio in support of mother and child health.
Krishnamurthy Pv, Pinyu Chen · 1986
In India the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the government in collaboration with the UN International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has been organizing special media orientation workshops devoted to Mother and Child Health for radio procedures since 1982. The workshops focus on the 1st year of the childs life and the health interventions needed for the survival of both mother and child. The workshops are unique in that they are all area and regional-specific involving decision makers of various state governments. The purpose of the 6-day Orientation Workshop which usually includes around 75-80 participants is to: motivate producers to develop empathy for field level workers and to realize their role as a support to them; to help the field level workers realize the importance of media as a support to their programs and its legitimizing and confirmatory potential; to involve decision makers and subject matter specialists in providing the needed services and input to the program; and to develop the technique of a team mode approach to program conceptualizing planning and production. All levels of functionaires who are involved with the implementation of the social welfare program and delivery of health services are represented among the participants. The program producers from All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshen are those who are responsible for the production of women welfare programs childrens programs farm radio officers and extension officers. The workshop curriculum is reviewed covering the presentation to participants of an audience profile self-introduction the tasks of the field visits and data analysis. Follow-up involves assuring that radios are made available to the rural women and helping rural women to learn from the radio programs. From July 1982 until July 1986 a total of 16 Media Orientation Workshops were held in 12 states with participation from 57 AIR stations in the country. Monitoring and evaluation studies were conducted in the states of Haryana Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. The number of organized listening groups in these 3 states were 1470 1000 and 250 respectively. 2041 listeners from the organized groups were interviewed along with 249 independent listeners. About 97.19% of the Anganwadi animators surveyed reported gain in new knowledge related to child survival and development issues; over 74% of the women learned something new. The evaluation studies also showed that retention of new knowledge gained varied according to topic. As a result of the radio programs a large number of rural women came to know to the service available to them.