The Population Foundation of India in association with Aravali Vikas Sangathan (ARAVIS) implemented a project titled, ‘Three-in-one Communication Programme for Empowerment of Community on the Issues of Population, Health and Social Development (focusing on Women) through Phone-in Community Radio and Training Programmes in Haryana. The objectives of the Programme were to empower the community on the issues of population, health and social development through phone-in programmes and community radio and to generate software for training, which could be extensively used.

The objectives of the project were: (i) sensitization of the target group of rural population on the issues relating to women, girl child, literacy health and empowerment in an interactive manner illustrate a variety of concepts and attitudes, (ii) giving voice to the voiceless underprivileged groups of women/girls/parents/teachers/peers in rural areas to raise issues that concern all stakeholders, (iii) Discussion on sensitive issues like female foeticide, HIV/AIDS, RCH, discrimination against girl child etc in a non threatening, faceless environment leading to improved understanding of the problems.

The core team, headed by Mrs Omita Paul, President, ARAVIS, met once every week to develop the concept of the phone-in radio programme called ‘Chetanaa’ and to discuss and plan the various aspects of the activities to be carried out. Two workshops on ‘Three-in- one – phone in programme’ were held as a run up to the broadcast of ‘Chetanaa’. Seventeen topics on population and other related issues were selected for discussion through the phone-in programme. A post box number was acquired, so that besides calling in on telephone, the listeners could send in their queries through mail. The programme, Chetanaa, consisting of twenty-six episodes on population and other related issues, was broadcast on every Sunday, from 6.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m., from AIR Rohtak over a period of six months. The first episode went on air on November 16, 2003 and the last episode was broadcast May 16, 2004.

The second phase of the programme involved repackaging of the twenty hour programmes into compact modules. The twenty–six programmes were repackaged into eighteen half hour programmes on seventeen different subjects. The facilitators were trained to initiate discussion and start with local village level issues instead of recording them on cassettes. This approach had the advantage of eliminating the repetition of questions and ensuring the versatile use of these programmes in a larger number of villages and over a longer period of time. Eight facilitators were trained at a half-day workshop on organization of community listening and focused group discussion. Twenty villages were selected and community listening was organized for groups of fifty men and women. Two facilitators were assigned to each group. To make the discussion more participative, incentives were given through prizes for the best intervention and the best question. The response of the village community was overwhelming.

The eighteen half hour programmes were further edited to make seventeen capsules each of fifteen minutes duration for use as training material to stimulate, provoke and motivate the members of the village community to air their views for a healthy debate, which could lead to behavioural change.