MUMBAI: ‘Radio for Child Rights’- three strong words were the theme of the day-long workshop held in the financial capital. Professionals from private radio stations, All India Radio and Community Radio Stations participated in the workshop organised by UNICEF India in partnership with Association for Radio Operators in India (AROI) on 9 December.
It intended to facilitate an exchange on how radio can best be leveraged as part of communication outreach to build awareness on child rights with a special focus on the issue of open defecation. The programme also highlighted the campaign to stop open defecation – ‘Take the Poo to the Loo’.
Speaking to Radioandmusic.com, UNICEF India Communication Officer Sonia Sarkar said, “Take the Poo to the Loo campaign speaks about half of India’s population that is defecating in the open. Poo is a very taboo subject and to reach out to the young urban Indian who believes in creating an impact, is very crucial. The internet is definitely a medium but radio is increasingly an important medium that youth connect with today.” Sarkar is also looking after the campaign on a national level.
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Along with Sarkar was Swati Mohapatra from UNICEF India who represented their plans for this campaign in Maharashtra. Mohapatra hopes to travel across India to create awareness about the issue. RJ Simran Kohli presented the power of Radio in this workshop in the most efficient way. Meanwhile, Uday Chawla also addressed the attendees to present his view about radio.
In November, UNICEF conducted on-ground activations across New Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune and Mumbai which did not receive lot of attention. The digital campaign has a website, Twitter and Facebook page. An interesting arm is the Poo2Loo game, Poo song, video and webcert (online concert where youth bands perform poo songs) highlighting the initiative put together by UNICEF India, to strengthen the campaign.
India has made tremendous progress in the provision and use of toilets in the last 20 years, as per reports, reducing the practice of open defecation from 75 percent of the population in 1990 to 51 percent in 2010.
