Radioing for help in Belagavi

Soon after the lockdown was imposed, 50-year-old Subash Shindhe, a carpenter with disabilities, found himself out of work. Shinde, who stays in Kakati village some 12 km away from Belagavi city, lost both his legs due to paralysis. However, a chance phone call to KLE Venudhwani, a community radio station (CRS) at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Belagavi, led to orders for furniture that generated enough work for two months.

Like many labourers, Bhavani, a resident of Shivajinagar in Belagavi City, was out of work. A day after she contacted the CRS seeking a job, she received a call from a reputed hypermarket, offering her employment.

Arushi, a tailor from Kakati, has a similar story: the the pandemic had left her in a financial crisis. A call to the CRS seeking help led to her receiving an order to stitch 42,000 masks.

Venudhwani CRS, launched in 2015 by KLE Academy of Higher Education and Research, is engaged in the dissemination of information related to health, agriculture and the government welfare schemes. It reaches communities residing within 25 km radius of Belagavi City, with around 2.5 lakh listeners.

The work done by Venudhwani during the Covid-19 pandemic has shown the potential of community radio stations to move beyond raising awareness about social issues, to actively helping communities in distress.

“We were continuously broadcasting programmes about Covid-19 since the second week of March. The situation was alarming. Many labourers had lost jobs. Small businesses were in crisis. We wanted to help these communities by providing relief at least for two months,” says CRS executive Veeresh Kumar S Nandagaon.

Call and solve

Nandagaon and Dr Sunil Jalalpure, the CRS director, got in touch with a local philanthropist and motivational speaker with a network of 1,400 donors. After deliberations, the CRS decided to broadcast a 30-minute live phone-in programme connecting donors with those in need of relief. The programme titled ‘call and solve’ was launched on May 27.

The programme is broadcast in Kannada and Marathi six days a week — Monday through Saturday — from 6.30 to 7 pm.

“After listing the problems, a team visits the callers’ houses and verifies the details. We set a 24-hour time frame to provide relief to genuine cases,” Jalalpure explains.

Besides the radio broadcast, the team used social media platforms and local newspapers to make announcements about the programme, so that those in need of help could place a call.

At present, the CRS receives at least 40 calls each day seeking relief but given the time constraints, the staff can handle only 10 calls.

“The CRS hasn’t revealed names of the donors based on request,” clarifies Nandagaon.

Beyond the crisis

Realising the station’s potential to reach out to its community members, the Venudhwani staff have decided to run the live phone-in programme even after the crisis is over.

“Instead of six days a week, we may air it twice a week in future,” adds Nandagaon.

“My family too faced problems due to lockdown. I called up the radio station and narrated our problems. The station staff visited my house to share details about jobs available for me. They also helped my father who is a tailor get orders to stitch masks,” says Sheetal Wadani, a resident of Rukmini Nagar in Belagavi.

Ashok Mudawal, a resident of the camp area, says he immediately received food kits after placing a call. “Within hours after I called up the station seeking help, the food kit was delivered at my doorstep,” he says.

The Venudhwani staff even delivered medicines worth Rs 7,000 to the doorstep of Somaraj, an elderly person from Peeranwadi.

“I had no money to buy the medicine. My family members got in touch with the station seeking assistance. The staff visited my house and delivered the medicine the next day,” he says.

Besides helping merchants find markets to sell commodities, assisting labourers to find work, the programme has helped provide food kits, medicine and other essentials at the doorstep of several other people in need.

For details, call 9019904904.