The Election Commission of India (ECI) has partnered with University of Hyderabad (UoH) to educate voters by organising a three-day workshop on “Festival of Democracy” in the city from February 22.
During the workshop, 50 community broadcasters from 25 radio stations across the country will participate. According to university, the workshop is aimed to brainstorm on key strategies to influence local communities and spread awareness about the dos and don’ts for voters stated the university.
ECI will collaborate with university’s Unesco chair on community media for its flagship programme, Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP). The collaboration is supposed to mobilise the power of community radio to enhance electoral literacy. The programme is also supposed to boost participation of the informed voters through a decentralised communication approach with mostly community generated content.
Prof Vinod Pavarala, head of Unesco chair on community media at UoH said, “After the capacity-building wokshop in Hyderabad, participants will head back to their stations and make 100 hours of radio programmes collectively. The set of themes should be related to voter education in over 10 different languages, including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Telugu and Urdu.”
The chosen 25 community radio stations will cover a total 75 stations and their sizeable audience by sharing their content with two other stations in their respective regions. The UoH will help in the production and even closely monitor the content that will be aired on these community radio stations.
