Awards to recognise use of radio to fight violence against children

New Delhi: A call from a ninth standard girl disturbed by the circulation of a video of herself with her boyfriend made city-based RJ Makin run a radio campaign against violence against children.
The two-week long campaign conducted earlier this year aimed at bringing together individuals and organizations, uniting their voices, actions and resources to make societies safer for children everywhere. “After the girl’s call, I began to receive a flurry of calls and messages from teenagers, who rang in with similar stories and wanted to know how to deal with it,” the RJ helming a popular late-night radio show on love and relationships, said.
Makin’s campaign that emphasized on the need for survivors and potential victims of child abuse to speak up and reach out for help, is one of the many entries for this year’s Radio4Child awards.
An initiative of UNICEF, the award, now in its third edition recognises innovative and thought-provoking programming on child and maternal health from public, private and community radio broadcasters across India.
Other entries include that of Khusboo Mattoo from Srinagar who aired a promo to narrate the story of a child sexual abuse survivor, urging adults to not disregard the possibility of abuse at home.
Kolkata-based RJ Nilanjan used Rabindranath Tagore’s Bengali song Anek Katha Jao Je Bole (You say so much without saying anything at all) to introduce the difficult and sensitive topic of child sexual abuse on his weekend radio broadcast recently.
“The Nobel Laureate’s song written for his toddler daughter who had not yet learnt to speak and used to communicate in a series of babbles, is essentially a guide that adults need to be mindful of when speaking to children about abuse — to learn to hear the unspoken,” RJ Nilanjan said.
The path-breaking works of these radio jockeys will be showcased at the upcoming fourth edition of the Partnership of Maternal, Child and Newborn Health (PMNCH) forum next month here, which will address violence against children among other issues.
The global high-profile meet that will see participation from about 1,200 organizations from over 100 countries, will also offer opportunities for future collaborations and information exchanges for global communities. (PTI)