Beyond the sound bite: Community radio broadcasts 50,000 voices for change

Coimbatore: Fifty thousand ideas to change society, from all walks of life — that is what members of the PSG Community Radio in the city have been doing for the past five months.
They have ‘collected’ voices of 50,000 people from the city and neighbouring districts, which they have been broadcasting for the project ‘Vision India 2030 – Radio Hub Coimbatore’.
Members of the radio said they asked people to speak about their idea to change the society. “We went around areas such as Peelamedu, R S Puram, Race Course, Codissia and other prominent areas. We spoke to people from various communities and walks of life. We asked them to introduce themselves and asked them what change they wished to see in the city,” said S Manimaran, a final year student of PSG College of Technology who is the executive head for the project.
He said they collected the voices from last October 15 to this January end. “Each voice is around 2minutes to 3minutes long. We have so far broadcasted around 8,000 voices. We would have to broadcast till mid-year to complete broadcasting all the voices,” he said.
This was the first phase of their bigger project to collect 1lakh voices, he said. “We would start the next phase from June, the start of the next academic year,” he said.
Also, to put the idea of change into practice, as part of the project, they collected around 100 students and conducted a cleaning drive near Tidel Park, he said. “We have chosen the theme ‘Vision India 2030’ to honour the memory of former president APJ Abdul Kalam. We want to show that students haven’t forgotten his dream and we would carry it forward,” he said.
The station has also selected 108 people from among the 50,000 – to mark its broadcast frequency 107.8MHz – who have given the best ideas for change and would bring them to the station from the 20th to 24th of this month and hold interviews with them.
Station director B Chandrasekaran said being a community radio, they have taken up this project to bring in a sense of community participation in bringing about change. Last year, the community radio broadcasted programmes non-stop for 107.8hours to set a record. “That was an attempt to set a record. This is to usher in a change,” he said.