Outreach for Development initiatives facilitate participation and positive social change in rural communities by creating awareness and sharing knowledge. The program employs a well-balanced rural community media mix including a rural community radio station (Alfaz-e-Mewat), social media, and other print, visual and interactive formats to strengthen and promote opinions favorable to the attainment of rural development goals. Reliable and timely information is shared in an easy-to-understand manner to stimulate dialogue and engagement that positively influence behavior changes. By providing a platform to grassroots communities to voice their views, people are encouraged to identify important issues affecting their lives and to work together to resolve them. Last-mile outreach activities bridge the large information divide and accelerate social change by bringing local voices and their concerns to the forefront.

THE NEED

For the socioeconomic development of any society, including rural development in India, access to reliable information is critical, guiding participation and decision-making, and enabling communities to recognize and address development issues that affect them the most. Such access to reliable and timely information remains a challenge in rural India. While new information is generated at a rapid rate, low literacy levels, language diversities, and the poor reach of the mainstream media in rural development limit the spread of this information.

COMMUNITY RADIO OUTREACH

Rural community radios promote civic participation by providing a platform of expression to communities to learn, discuss, and debate important local issues, and ascertain the accuracy of information. Radio is an effective rural community media tool that spans large distances and reaches a sizeable listenership, both literate and otherwise.

In 2012, with support from the GoI Ministry of Agriculture, S M Sehgal Foundation launched a rural community radio station: Alfaz-e-Mewat. Tuned in at 107.8 MHz, the station is location in Nuh district of Haryana, India; one of many aspirational districts in India. Staffed by members of the local community, Alfaz-e-Mewat broadcasts thirteen hours every day of the week, bringing important messages in the local language on agricultural practices and techniques, water issues, nutrition, women and child health, as well as other pertinent social and cultural issues, to households across 225 villages. Vital programming that is relevant to other parts of rural India are shared across the wider community radio network across India.

EDUCATIONAL ENTERTAINMENT OUTREACH

The Outreach for Development team designs and disseminates messages on social development themes to educate and engage assorted stakeholders in a fun and entertaining way. Tools such as audiovisual stories, street theater, posters, interactive games, and wall art, among others, capture the attention of people and create social consciousness. The team publishes training materials, including leaflets, manuals, for later reference and awareness generation. Furthermore, the team creates and shares programs with radio stations in other regions.

The Outreach for Development helps conceptualize BaLA (building as learning aid) paintings as fun teaching aids for schoolchildren so that the walls talk to children, leading to enhanced learning under the foundation’s Transform Lives one school at a time program.

SOCIAL MEDIA OUTREACH

A new initiative as of 2022 is a podcast called SMSF Connect, a go-to place to learn about our organization’s history, gain insights from our senior management team members on social development themes, and hear our radio campaigns. The podcast is available on i-radiolive and Spotify.