Tamil Community Radio Centre

With the purpose of building the capacity of Tamil minorities in Delhi to produce and exchange information of local importance in Tamil language, to record and preserve unique cultural heritage through media, as well as to establish a permanent communication channel between these communities and the rest of the country, 

OneWorld South Asia (OWSA) and Vanavil Trust launched the Tamil Community Radio on Tamil New Year’s Day, Friday 14, April 2006.

Community radio broadcasting is still the most popular form of information communication technology among the grassroots.  It's interactivity, local language and reach to all categories of society is the key for its success.  Communication of issues which can address various grassroots concerns relating to health, education, livelihood and environment.

The title track for Tamil community radio was released.  Which narrates "OneWorld One Voice, your voice, our voice leading to one voice", Voice which will shows us new direction and leads our way to development.  Voices which would communicate local problems and find local solutions.

Tamil community Radio envisages using various traditional and new media for communicating grassroots issues.  One of the traditional forms of sharing knowledge through story telling was used to communicate the purpose of Tamil Radio to the community and also how they can be benefited from it.  Villupattu or the Bow-song (traditional way of story telling in south ), the main instrument is a bow, where many small bells are tied on the bowstring. The main storyteller narrates the story striking the bow. The bow rests on a mud pot kept facing downwards. Another person beats the pot while singing. There is also a co-singer who adopts the role of an active listener by saying 'yes yes' or asking 'is it so?' appropriately, to make it more interesting for the performer as well as the audience.  The stories chosen are heroic ballads commonly known in the villages. The same story telling form was used to communicate the day to day problems and concerns which the Tamil community is facing in Delhi from water, power, housing, job, education Health etc.  Through such various traditional forms Tamil community radio would help the marginalized Tamil population to communicate their issues to wider population and also access solutions to it.

Presently the radio programmes produced will be narrow cast within the Tamil Slum Communities in Delhi, estimated to be 15lac strong in population.  It is proposed to broadcast these programmes using the community radio license at IGNOU, Indian Institute of Mass Communication and Jamia Milia Islamia radio channels, in collaboration with Vanavil and using OWSA’s audio studio.

The launch of Tamil Community Radio was organised by OneWorld South Asia and Vaanavil Trust in association with and the United Student Cultural Federation in Kanaka Durga Colony, Sector 12, R.K. Puram, New Delhi.

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