OWSA’s new initiatives on local content exchange
OneWorld South Asia has launched EK duniya anEK awaaz, a portal that facilitates local audio content exchange and the latest version of Open eNRICH, a content sharing tool jointly developed with UNESCO and National Informatics Centre. Both these initiatives are expected to enhance the communication opportunities at the grassroots.
New Delhi: OneWorld South Asia today launched Ek duniya anEk awaaz (EDAA) and Open eNRICH 4.1.
Both these initiatives represent important milestones in OneWorld South Asia's journey towards creating a host of enabling technologies and platforms for poor rural communities to share knowledge and content that would best herald their progress.
EK duniya anEK awaaz is a portal that aims to catalyse audio content exchange and collaborations amongst communities.
A community-oriented audio content exchange bank, EDAA offers free and open access to local knowledge in regional languages. It serves as a South Asian archive of development and MDG-related audio clips that community radio stations with limited resources can leverage to ensure high quality of content.
Launching the portal, Minja Yang, Director and UNESCO Representative in India said: "There is a need to create space for everybody and to make sure that it is not encroached upon by the dominant voices."
It was in 2002 when the Indian government decided to open up the community radio broadcasting sector by announcing a new policy, under which, CR licenses could be granted to educational institutions and organisations recognised by the central or the state governments.
But community radio took off in a real sense in November 2006, when the government opened up the sector to NGOs as well.
The EDAA concept was born out of OneWorld South Asia's experience of initiating people's radio, producing and broadcasting radio programmes on socially relevant issues. Through its programme EK Duniya EK Awaaz (EDEA), it has been building competencies of grassroots radio broadcasters across the region, and creating a library of community-oriented audio content on a range of issues related to the MDGs and beyond.
Speaking on the occasion, Naimur Rahman, Director OneWorld South Asia said that these two initiatives would take local content to communities at the grassroots level.
Introducing the Open eNRICH version 4.1, D.C. Misra, Senior Technical Director, NIC, pointed out that such initiatives had been undertaken in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Africa too.
Open eNRICH 4.1 is the latest version of Open eNRICH, a content sharing tool developed jointly with UNESCO and National Informatics Centre (NIC), Government of India.
Open eNRICH is a customised, user-friendly software solution on open source software platform that facilitates content sharing in local languages even in rural areas, where there is limited internet connectivity. It has been used to support the requirements of the Open Knowledge Network initiative of OneWorld.
Open eNRICH is currently in use in the WHO Health InterNetwork Project, UNESCO's INFOYOUTH project, and in the District Rural Development Agencies of state governments, including northeastern states of India.
OKN's partners in six countries - India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Kenya, Senegal, and Zimbabwe - are using the software to create local content in 14 languages.
Launching this unique software, Dr. B.K. Gairola, Director General National Informatics Centre: “Today various such platforms are available. What is needed is to make people in remote areas contribute to knowledge sharing.”
Ashish Sen, President, AMARC Asia and Pacific and Executive Director of VOICES, Bangalore shared potential benefits of the portal, including highlighting the needs of the most needy, networking at local to global levels, and campaigning, and urged the practitioners of Community Radio in India to collaborate and share content on the portal.
“The road has been laid for us," he said, "We now need to walk on it to ensure that those who follow do not find a dead end."
He added that to sustain such initiatives it was important to channelise collective energies and strengthen efforts to generate relevant local content.
For further information, please contact:
Geetha Bhardwaj
Head, Community and Social Media
OneWorld South Asia
OneWorld International Foundation
C-5 Qutab Institutional Area
New Delhi – 110016
Tel: +91-011-41689000 (Extn: 113)
Email: geetha.bhardwaj@oneworld.net
