RADIO SANGHARSH: A Greenpeace initiative in Madhya Pradesh

NGO

23 Nov 2013, 01:43 pm Print

Sujoy Dhar

Radio Sangharsh is Greenpeace India’s project, set up with the help of CGNet Swara, that gives the larger world an opportunity to discover stories from the forests. By digitizing the voices from grassroots, we hope to facilitate sharing of grassroots people’s life with the environment to the rest of the world. Combining technology with powerful social expressions, Radio Sangharsh aims to create a decentralized platform that will provoke and enlarge the debate around the right of indigenous people on forests.

Radio Sangharsh allows these citizen journalists from the communities in and around Mahan forest to share stories, traditional knowledge, folk songs and grievances from their lives in Mahan and how important the forest is to them. Radio Sangharsh has been conceptualised as a tool to empower local communities with a voice. And we are facilitating in making their voices heard.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Mobile Radio is a new innovative communication tool in India’s media landscape. By using it to connect various social, commercial and political fabrics in our country, we hope to create a sense of oneness. Radio Sangharsh connects the two disconnected realities of our country, the urban and the rural, with just a phone call.

To report a story, you need to give a missed call to +91 990 291 5604, upon which our system will call you back. It’s free of cost, time efficient and user friendly! Voice instructions from the other side allow you to record your own story in 3 minutes, or navigate through the other published stories over the phone.

THE IMPACT

Radio Sangharsh aims to push these stories forward to the larger world. Their stories deserve to be heard. Their stories deserve to be heard, their culture needs to be restored and their problems need your simple action to be solved. The Mahan communities are fighting to save their forest, which is the guardian of their culture and source of livelihood. Powerful corporations are seeking to destroy the thick forest cover, the rich biodiversity and endangered animals, and livelihoods of a lakh people – only to mine for coal.

OUR GOAL

To Empower the communities and give them a platform to voice their concerns and be aware of their rights.
To Connect the rural communities among themselves and with the urban society on pressing issues like livelihood and facilities, atrocities by officials and corporates, rights, displacements, transparency of information, equality, indigenous culture, other struggles in lives etc.
To Bridge the gap between rural communities and the urban centers; so that the unheard stories of injustice from the remotest regions are heard.
To Influence a change which will be beneficial to the larger good of the communities and the places these communities live in.

Contact:

Email: arvind.shivakumar@greenpeace.org
Phone: 080 42821010 / 41154861