AIDS on Air: Campus Radio Station Enlivens HIV Testing

[Guest guest]

AIDS on Air: Campus Radio Station Enlivens HIV Testing

Jaya Shreedhar/Internews

Internews-trained radio journalists Dhivya Ramalingam and Ambigai at FM in Chennai, India produce a program for young people on HIV/AIDS.

(November 21, 2007) "Where can I get an HIV test?" "How soon can I get my test results?" "Will the test results be kept confidential?" These were just three of the more than 20 call-in questions from young people during an hour long live program Unarvugal (Feelings) on HIV/AIDS conducted by radio journalists Dhivya Ramalingam and Ambigai at FM in Chennai, India. Expert counselor and studio guest Magadalene Jeyaratnam barely had time to pause between callers and continued to take questions from student listeners on campus even after the program came to an end. The calls began soon after the program aired a human interest feature on pre-marital HIV testing produced by the two radio journalists.

The talk show was the fourth of a series on HIV and young people produced by Dhivya and Ambigai, who were trained by Internews' Local Voices project India in Tamil Nadu State. "We learnt to produce short Features with natural sound and sound bytes from experts and community members," says Dhivya. "Young people have many questions and misperceptions about HIV and we use the features to focus our talk shows on themes like HIV testing. Our program is attracting more and more callers!"

FM has a broadcast radius of 15 km. It reaches its own students and many economically disadvantaged communities in the neighborhood. "We first met the community members and assessed their HIV knowledge. We then talked about what our program planned to do and chose our topics based on their feedback," says Ambigai. "They now say that this is a useful platform for them to discuss their concerns about HIV."

The duo produced their first feature on Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) at the Internews workshop and aired it on FM with the guidance of Dr. Lakshmi, the Director of the Electronic Media Resource Center at University. While Dhivya introduced studio guest Ms. Lakshmi Prasad, a counselor at the YRG CARE, a nearby AIDS Service Organization, Ambigai assisted women from the nearby slums to ask the counselor questions on HIV transmission, testing facilities and confidentiality issues. During the broadcast, Dhivya facilitated her studio guest to clarify doubts and answer questions. She also provided the listeners with toll free helpline numbers and addresses of Voluntary Counseling and Testing Centers.

Encouraged by the response, Dhivya began using Internews' Media Resource Center to research, record, script and edit the news features and broadcast three more programs on the campus radio station on HIV testing, a second on VCT and the third on pre-marital testing. Unarvugal has featured counselors, doctors and People Living with HIV (PLHIV) on shows. A human interest feature followed by a live studio guest and phone- ins is another first for campus radio and for FM, which was also the first Indian campus radio station to go on air.

The Internews Local Voices project in India is supported by the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through a cooperative agreement form the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

http://www.internews.org/prs/2007/20071121_india.shtm