It’s anniversary time for State’s first campus-based Community Radio Station (CRS), `Radio Macfast-90.4’.
Setting itself a role model to the rest of the higher education centres in the State, Mar Athanasios College For Advanced Studies, Thiruvalla (Macfast) and its visionary principal, Fr Abraham Mulamoottil, launched a novel CRS on the previous Kerala Formation Day on November 1, 2009. The first anniversary celebrations of Radio Macfast will be held at the college auditorium at Thukalasserry near Thiruvalla on Monday.
Radio Macfast has proved its merit in transmitting the philosophy of love, brotherhood and sharing to the local social psyche of Central Travancore during the past one year. The shooting popularity graph of this community radio station in this Central Travancore belt spread across Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha and Kottayam district is a testimony to this bare truth.
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Our mission is to exploit the potential of CRS in the socio-economic development of the region by effectively utilising the youth power with the help of modern technology, said the visionary Macfast principal, Fr Abraham Mulamoottil who is also the chairman of Radio Macfast and Fr Pradeep Vazhatharamalayil, Manager.
The CRS has made many fruitful attempts to tap the human resource potential of this highly literate region, making the radio a people’s channel of interaction and sharing.
George Mathew, station director, says the social networking programmes aired by Radio Macfast have been receiving immense public response and participation. Programmes on healthcare, environment conservation, heritage, `successline’, farming, youth power, women’s world, kids’ time, literature, moral talks, legal awareness and a series of socially relevant entertainment programmes were proved to be big hits both in the rural and urban belt, he said.
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``We are very particular that every programme aired on Radio Macfast should be rooted in the spirit of sharing and our well-knit team, comprising professionals as well as students, have succeeded in making it a partner friend of the local populace,’’ says Fr Mulamoottil.
Radio Macfast focuses on low cost and low return pattern of operation, aimed at educating and entertaining the people using their own idioms and language, he adds.
Students at Macfast as well as the nearby educational institutions were getting a chance to fine tune their talents through this campus-centred radio station.
True to its punchline, ``Naattukarku koottayi, Radio Macfast-90.4’’, the CRS has become a partner friend of the local people.