Even though the youth (below 30 years of age) comprise 50 per cent of the total population of the globe, they have remained as passive listeners in social affairs and their voices have for long been neglected. It is with an aim to provide a platform to the youth to voice their opinion on a cross section of topics and to enhance their soft skills, the unique concept of School Radio – an online radio for schools, colleges and universities – was developed by Digital School in association with Vikasa Dhatri. Since its launch in February last year, School Radio has completed training in 20 schools across AP and Telangana on a pilot basis on Radio School’s online platform – www.schoolradio.in.
In view of their commitment towards inculcating environmental awareness among children, international NGO Earth Day Network will be featuring the green initiatives of School Radio in their upcoming ebook. “The team of Earth Day Network has also evinced interest to partner with us in order to take the concept of School Radio to other parts of AP and Telangana. We are also in talks with universities in North India to introduce school radio in the campuses,” Aruna Gali, managing partner, Digital School told The Hindu .
Vikasa Dhatri supports School Radio in developing the content on various topics and helps children and youth identify issues in their school, college and neighbourhood and find solutions to facilitate the change. “The school children can participate in School Radio programmes by reciting poems, songs, narrating folk tales, stories, talk shows and debates. We have successfully completed the online test broadcasting and schools are happy with the test broadcast,” said Udaya Kumar, partner of Digital School and Director – Trainings, School Radio.
Training module
Last year, School Radio facilitated radio programmes in 10 schools for free of cost, including government, corporate and private schools in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
“This year onwards, we have developed a training module and later we will support the schools in organising advanced training on different aspects of radio production. We are closely working with government schools in the region for this and have the support of two NRI individuals who are supporting our endeavour at a city school,” Aruna Gali added. The training is given for content generation as well as technology support. Once the training and content is completed, every school is given a specific time slot when their programme is broadcast on the online platform.
