Back then, they said little by little, their attempts to protect girls had become known. Chowa described how initially they didn’t get told the details, “we just heard there was a marriage happening nearby and then we tried to get the information – was it a child marriage or not? After, stopping a few child marriages in this way people from our area got to know us.”

We asked why they do it… their reply?

"Someone must do it"

“If, we only think about ourselves then there is no point… many people don’t do anything because their family is not supporting them, or they have social bindings. But if all of us sit by then society will never change.” Tabassum said that from the bottom of their hearts they wanted to help stop child marriage and eve teasing.

By 2019, the Grasshoppers had stopped over 50 child marriages.

Part 2: Grassroots, keep going, keep growing

Four years have passed, and I decided to find out what had happened since then. Chowa is now on her way to university but her work with Ghashforing has never stopped. More teenagers have joined the team and now Chowa diligently guides the new girls.

In Bangladesh, over 50% of girls are married before they turn 18.

Chowa told me about a particularly memorable child marriage they helped prevent.

They had learned that a senior girl from their school was being forced into an early marriage. Due to financial difficulties, the girl's family was unwilling to continue her education, and had decided to marry her off. But the girl’s family denied they were arranging her marriage.

First, Chowa and her friends went to the headmaster of their school and asked if the school could pay the expenses for the girl to continue her studies. Then they entered the girl’s house, disguised as wedding guests!

They sought out the bride who confirmed the wedding had been arranged against her will. The Grasshopper team then met the bride’s parents and explained the negative impacts of early marriage and told them that the school would pay for the girl's education. It was a tense, nerve-wracking but momentous moment when the family agreed to put a stop to the wedding.

Chowa said that moment shines brightly in her memory.

Amplifying the voices of women and girls

When the Grasshopper girls appeared on BBC Media Action’s Hello Check! Chowa found that many people in all corners of the country, and even outside the country, heard about the work of Ghashforing and it helped other girls be more aware of the issues.

"Many are showing courage and initiative… maybe the situation of early marriage would have changed only in this area. However, because of this publicity, now there is an opportunity for everyone to be aware and change the situation. Of course, you must continue to study if you want to get rid of the injustice, torture and dowry"

She explained that it’s a societal effort. Girls need the help of someone they can trust – a schoolteacher or an older sibling - and there is a government helpline for the prevention of early marriage. She added that the relationship between a girl and her parents needs to be handled with care – and reflected on another child marriage they stopped.

They found out from the girl’s friend in their school, that an early marriage was taking place against her will. But Chowa described how the family will often deny that there are plans for a child marriage.

On this occasion, they set up a vigil near the family home and – as suspected - the marriage started happening one evening. Ghashforing stopped that marriage with the help of Nandail's Teenage Women Football Team! The good news is that the girl then returned to school and is continuing her studies - which Chowa describes as the most satisfying part of their work.

Spreading the word and wings

Times are changing, early marriage used to be publicly celebrated, but this happens much less now – and Chowa thinks this is down to the success of the Grasshoppers – shared across Bangladesh by BBC Media Action’s Hello Check!.

Teenage girls in Bangladesh face many pressures as they grow up. Many of them cannot study because of financial problems. Many families think that daughters are a burden - that they will get married and leave for another house, so there’s no point spending money on their education. If we can change this kind of thinking, teenagers will grow up wonderfully.

When we asked Chowa about her future, she said she wants to study law at university. She wants to establish justice in our country. She said that if women study law, they will understand their rights. She wants women and girls to be better able to distinguish between right and wrong – and tackle injustice.

Chowa is determined to work with Ghashforing all her life. She wishes that girls should fly freely in the open sky, Grasshoppers is a belief, an idea, and a name to be trusted. Those who have followed in the footsteps of the original seven girls – will always be supported by Chowa.

Together they will keep stopping early marriages.

Final words of conviction from Chowa?

"There will never be a shortage of Grasshoppers in the open sky."

 

 

--

Tasnim Khandoker is an Assistant Producer for BBC Media Action in Bangladesh.

Learn more about:
Our work in Bangladesh here
Our work to support women and girls here
Or listen to the ‘Voices of women and girls’ here

The safety and welfare of colleagues was the first priority. But the other priority was our audiences. Many radio stations stopped broadcasting, out of fear, and we knew our audiences needed us more than ever.

No one was asked to come into work – but some did, at great risk, while others worked from home. In this difficult and dangerous situation, we have tried to focus on audience needs. Within the first few weeks, 2,000 health centres, including major hospitals, were closed down across the country.

We had been producing a radio health programme twice per month, focused on COVID-19 and broadcast on BBC Afghan service and on 30 community radio stations, reaching up to 12 million people. Now, people were without meaningful public health services, so we increased our programme frequency to twice per week – once in Dari and once in Pashto. We enlisted doctors to help us in a new programme segment, Where There Is No Doctor – covering topics like how to nurse patients at home.

Skyrocketing mental health needs

All of BBC Media Action’s work is based on audience research. In September, we were able to carry out research, mainly by mobile phone, to assess our audiences’ needs for health information. What came back was startling: 62% of respondents identified a need for mental health support. Stress, anxiety and depression had skyrocketed.

We created a question-and-answer segment for our radio programme, and asked our audience to send in voice messages with their questions and experiences, to be addressed with a counsellor on the next show. We were overwhelmed with hundreds of calls, from both men and women.

Amid all the hardship and risk, we have had this incredible feeling of being able to respond in an emergency with information that really matters. People are without incomes, without healthcare and without the information they need to make informed decisions. Where do they turn? In a crisis, radio is still the most important source of media for Afghans.

We realised that we could reach more people if we used our Lifeline programming to train more community journalists to report effectively in a crisis. We worked around the clock to adapt training materials into Dari and Pashto - a month’s worth of translating, editing and subtitling in one week. We weren’t even sure anyone would turn up. But in our first session we were amazed to see 25 participants, including six women. We have further built these connections through WhatsApp groups: answering questions, helping with story ideas and interview questions, and assessing listener needs.

We have also carried on working with the humanitarian response community, conducting research and sharing our findings to help aid agencies respond to people’s needs more effectively.

Proud to serve our audiences

The last days and weeks have been a blur of constant work and worry. The humanitarian emergency is only deepening in Afghanistan, while security continues to be a grave concern. Some of us have elected to remain behind; we are also exploring a model where we work alongside some of our colleagues who have been evacuated from Afghanistan to the UK.

We don’t know what the future holds, but we are proud to be serving our audiences with the trusted information they so desperately need, and to help make the emergency response in Afghanistan as effective as it can be.

Learn more about BBC Media Action’s work in Afghanistan or donate to our work through JustGiving (leads to a third-party site).

Livestreaming arrests

For a few weeks, the protests continued, and quickly grew from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands. They were joined by government officers, bank employees and even medical staff. By the coup’s third week, Myanmar was at a near-standstill, with shopping malls closed, demonstrations throughout the day and curfews imposed at night.

In turn, the security forces became more aggressive, with reports of many night-time arrests, and the use of stun grenades and live ammunition on demonstrators and during house-to-house searches. Large demonstrations turned into local neighbourhood protests; human rights organisations say security forces have been using extreme violence in cracking down on these gatherings. By the beginning of May, a monitoring group reported more than 760 people had been killed and nearly 4,000 remain in detention.

Over the last three months, the military has shut down internet access at night and has periodically blocked mobile data communication. Access to information is curtailed and access to social media platforms regularly blocked. Some journalists have been using social media to livestream arrests and harassment by the military, but intermittent shutdowns make it harder to share and access that information.

Local journalists threatened

The safety of journalists is under threat, both in the larger cities such as Yangon and Mandalay, and in ethnic areas where there are few national or international journalists. I have worked closely with local journalists from my work filming in these areas for our BBC Media Action TV series Khan Sar Kyi (Feel It), which brought leaders to meet and discuss major issues with local communities. Many of my journalist friends are now in hiding for fear of arrest.

They have spent years reporting from the front lines of ethnic conflict, and have skills and experience in negotiating and reporting on conflict in a high-risk media environment. However, most of these agencies are small, local operations that are an easy target for search, raid and arrest procedures from local authorities and security forces.

This month, while the world marked World Press Freedom Day, I counted the number of my Myanmar journalist friends who are detained, or fleeing. Over 70 have been arrested; 30 of those have been released, and more than 40 have been prosecuted. At least 20 more still face arrest warrants for doing their job. Some journalists now face charges under the Penal Code that carry a maximum sentence of up to three years in prison. Six media outlets’ licenses have been revoked, including two popular TV channels which were broadcasting Khan Sar Kyi.

Yet amidst the current crisis, the Myanmar public has adapted swiftly to the changing media landscape. They are using a range of virtual private networks (VPNs) that allow them to circumvent blocks on Internet and social media, and they switch between encrypted messaging apps to share information safely and discreetly. With trusted independent TV and radio channels now largely blocked and struggling to reach their audiences, people are turning to social media for news, to watch events unfold in real-time, and to organise protests. These young, often first-time voters are still ready to risk their lives for democracy.

The echo of bullets

I write this now from Kathmandu; I returned to Nepal after my application for a visa renewal was refused in March. I feel safer here. But when I hear a loud noise, I can’t forget the echo of bullets. And I still feel alarmed when I see a police officer.

I haven’t slept well since the coup began. Thoughts of my Burmese friends haunt me still. They cannot sleep from the sound of gunfire and fear of arrest. They stay awake all night to keep watch and protect their community. How can I sleep peacefully?

BBC Media Action has been working in Myanmar since 2013, and at the time of the coup was producing Khan Sar Kyi (Feel It) and Tea Cup Diaries, a popular radio drama that tackled social, religious and ethnic divides, as well as projects on COVID-19 prevention and on sexual and reproductive health and rights. While some of BBC Media Action's work in the country has been able to adapt and continue, Tea Cup Diaries and Khan Sar Kyi are currently on hold.

To the heart of the Silk Road

We started with a trip to Afghanistan’s third-largest city, Herat, in the west, 700 kilometres from Kabul. This city was at the heart of the ancient Silk Road and it is breath-taking, famous for its ancient sites, its arts and culture.

On our journey we passed four minarets commissioned 700 years ago by the powerful Mughul queen Gawhardshad Begum, which have survived decades of bombings by Soviet and then American forces. To me, they signify elegance and strength – much like the young women we were about to meet for our programmes, Open Jirga, and our new online show, WhatMatters2U, focused on young people.

In Herat, I found myself moderating a discussion among 30 young women, including small business owners, software designers, engineers, and a group of girls who are Afghanistan’s first and only girls’ robotics team.

A new generation of women

These young women represent a new generation. They have overcome deeply entrenched patriarchal culture and traditions to get an education, and to achieve in fields that are not traditional for women in even more equal societies. The fame of the girls’ robotics team has travelled far beyond the boundaries of this conservative province and even outside of Afghanistan itself.

In my work I have heard so many stories of women abused and deprived of their most basic rights – to education, to proper health care, to grow up before being married and bearing children. Herat remains deeply conservative, with some of the highest reported rates of violence against women in the country. Domestic abuse is so pervasive that the town’s main hospital even has a dedicated ward for female survivors of self-immolation – linked to severe abuse and extreme domestic violence.

And yet here stood these young women, with a line-up of high-tech devices – their creations - on display. Sumaya, the captain of the robotics’ team, proudly shared with our group a medical device first created from old car parts. “This is an alternative machine to a ventilator. We invented this to save lives during this pandemic,” she said.

'Against the dominant beliefs of society'

But Sumaya and her team also spoke of the many hurdles that block progress for Afghan women – a feeling echoed by many of the comments during the show. We broadcast this episode as a Facebook Live which drew a quarter of a million viewers, who joined our studio audience in asking questions of these remarkable women. How might women in other parts of the country learn these skills, when so many do not have access to education? Why can women not have support to achieve in technology?

‘What we make is against the dominant beliefs in our society. Making hardware and software is not perceived as a woman’s expertise,” said one of our participants, a software designer. Despite her achievements, she too has felt limited by cultural restrictions and constant threat of violence, and said she is virtually stuck in this corner of Afghanistan. “I couldn’t go to Kabul to receive an award for one of our products, due to safety concerns and family restrictions,” she said.

The mothers of these young women also joined the show, and I asked them what it has taken to realise their daughters’ dreams. The mother of one of the young women on the robotics team described the pain and worry she feels over her daughter’s achievements.

“When my daughter steps out of the house, and until she returns, my heart is pounding, worrying about her safety. But most painful is [knowing] the negative beliefs of society, towards girls going out of home and doing what is seen as taboo,” she said. “I have said to save the future of this country, we have to pay the price and go through endless hardship.”

The city without women

With her words in my ears, our next stop was Kandahar, 300 kilometres to the south and Afghanistan’s second-largest city. It was my first trip here and when we arrived, I thought of it as ‘the city without women’, as there were no women to be seen on the streets - women are expected to remain at home, out of sight.

This is the heartland of the Taliban, which forbids girls’ education and progress, and still controls some of its districts.

In this conservative setting, we had decided to do something unprecedented: an all-women show, inviting 50  women to ask questions of a panel that included Afghanistan’s Minister of the Economy, one of few women in Cabinet.

We expected many to refuse. Many had journeys to the studio that took them directly through areas of conflict. Yet 47 of the 50 invited women turned up. Despite the hardship and the risk, these women wanted to be heard.

The best Women's Day gift - equality

In all of our sessions, we had to take security precautions – both against COVID-19, and against the threat of violence. To protect against the virus, we held our sessions outdoors, ensured everyone washed their hands and wore masks, and ensured physical distance between guests. And to help protect these women against repercussions for participating, we invited them to keep their faces covered if they wished, and ensured none of our participants were named.

Yet few were discouraged from speaking. The best Women’s Day gift, one said, would be if her family and her society would respect her and treat her as an equal human being. Another wanted to study what she was interested in – journalism and broadcasting – instead of Islamic studies, as her family insisted.

But the one whose voice will remain with me was a 40-something mother who arrived a few minutes late. She was among the first to raise her hand to speak – but when she did, she broke down in tears. Her journey to make herself heard, she said, had almost cost her her life, as she had found herself caught in an armed battle between the Taliban and government forces.

'We deserve a normal life'

“There is fighting in our district every day,” she said. “We are exhausted and shattered by bullets and bombs.”

After the show, I pulled her aside. Why had she gone through such danger to attend our show? She told me simply that she wanted our panel, and the world, to know that Afghanistan women needed to breathe. They deserve a normal life.

Open Jirga is BBC Media Action’s long-running debate and discussion programme covering issues of national importance for Afghans. WhatMatters2U is a social media-led debate and discussion programme aimed at young audiences, particularly women and girls. Both are funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

In the spring of 2018, I paid a visit to a remote village of Afghanistan. As part of the villagers’ hospitality, I was served a warm cup of green tea along with some homemade cookies, and at first I was captivated by people’s stories about their culture and traditions.

Then, someone placed a large steel kettle, known in Afghanistan as a samovar, onto the fire to brew more tea. I was distracted by its NGO logo. Where did they get this samovar?

With a slight smirk, the villagers replied: “This was donated to us by an NGO for handwashing. We converted it into a samovar.”

My initial reaction was to contain my laughter at their cleverness, converting a portable sink into a samovar. But then my laughter turned into sadness at the outcome of the NGO’s efforts. They had spent so much money and effort, and in the end, their resources were not used as intended. They had not had the lasting impact they had hoped for.

I have been a humanitarian worker for the past eight years, leading various projects in providing basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services and working on hygiene behaviour change in Afghanistan. What I have personally observed over the years is that, despite the prolonged presence of international humanitarian organisations, many have struggled to achieve the goal of sustained hygiene behaviour change.

This is because many WASH projects focus on providing services, rather than focusing on behaviour change from the very start. They may also focus on the idea of access to water, sanitation and hygiene as being the main outcome of their work, rather than a path to other benefits.

Awareness campaigns need to explain the health benefits, and promote these ideas in a way that results in people changing how and when they wash their hands. They will not work if they impose theories that do not consider the context, or the importance of hygiene in Afghan culture, religion or tradition at the most local level.

What I have observed over the years of working on hygiene behaviour change projects is that to obtain long-term impact, you must:

• Make sure behaviour change is at the forefront of the project, alongside service provision
• Ensure hygiene awareness campaigns and approaches are rooted in local culture, traditions, religion and norms, with the intent of changing behaviour
• Give local humanitarian organisations and civil societies the autonomy to develop context-based behaviour change approaches independently, based on their knowledge on the ground
• Remember that when thinking about access to services, it may mean influencing local government agencies to change policies to meet local needs, or reconsidering an agency approach and adapting to what partners find works best locally
• Use the power of media as an effective platform to contribute towards sustainable impact on hygiene behaviour change.

I am now working with BBC Media Action to begin implementing a Hygiene Behaviour Change Coalition project, funded by UK Aid and Unilever, focused on changing hygiene behaviours, including encouraging handwashing with soap, to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The project targets two high-risk and under-served groups in Afghanistan, the urban poor and the nomadic Kuchi people. We will reach these audiences through radio and television public service announcements, and ‘fast fiction’ format storytelling rooted in local culture and tradition.

To start off this work, we have cast Mamnoon Maqsoodi, one of Afghanistan’s most famous cinema and theatre artists, to voice the first round of our TV and radio PSA campaigns. His famous voice is known to nearly all Afghan people.

We know that the majority of advertisements and PSAs use formal language and an official tone to convey their messages. We have taken a different approach, using colloquial language and a more informal tone that will resonate with our audiences.

To build our PSAs, we have undertaken a full behaviour change approach. This includes formative research, multiple workshops including the development of a theory of change, and multiple pre-tests of our content to ensure it will be effective as communication for behaviour change.

So enthusiastic was Mr Maqsoodi in embracing his character that he insisted on bringing a portable sink into the recording studio, to capture the realistic sounds and feeling of handwashing as he explained how to wash hands with soap to help fight the virus.

“This is so refreshing, to convey a message in this manner, which any Afghan will understand,” he said.

BBC Media Action will work in Afghanistan and Somalia with the Hygiene Behaviour Change Coalition until July 2021. Our aim is to focus on hygiene behaviour change that will support people to better protect themselves against COVID-19, and contribute to better health for themselves and their families. Some 80,000 children under five die each year in Afghanistan – and an estimated 12% of those are from diarrhoeal diseases, which can often be prevented with good hygiene including handwashing with soap.

It is my hope that this campaign, deeply rooted in local culture and tradition, will be the start of longer-term change in hygiene practice, and better health for some of Afghanistan’s most vulnerable people.

KATHMANDU – When a deadly earthquake hit Nepal in April 2015, survivors like me were too scared to live in our own houses, even if they were not damaged. We all moved to temporary shelters amidst a series of aftershocks.

Five years later, we find ourselves in the midst of another crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic. If the earthquake forced us to flee our houses, the pandemic has made it necessary to stay at home, and to maintain physical distancing if we step out.

After the earthquake, I had the opportunity to lead a BBC Media Action team to produce Milijuli Nepali (‘Together Nepal’) – a daily Lifeline radio programme that served local communities with lifesaving messages, initially about food, shelter and sanitation, and then about reconstruction and retrofitting.

Milijuli Nepali became an instant hit because of its unique style of delivering messages through an amalgamation of folk music and stories. After more than 1,200 episodes, broadcast through local radios in the 14 districts worst affected by the earthquake, Milijuli Nepali took a break in March 2019.

A little more than a year later, as Nepal battles against a deadly coronavirus outbreak, we've relaunched Milijuli Nepali – this time with a mission to communicate vital health messages related to COVID-19.

And I'm thrilled to have another opportunity to do what I love, and what I'm good at: using information as aid to save lives during a humanitarian crisis.

Restarting lifeline communication

When Nepal confirmed its first coronavirus case in February, fear, anxiety and uncertainty spread like wildfire, just as in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. People had many unanswered questions about this invisible enemy that had already created a long trail of death and hardship around the world.

This situation got me thinking: I wish I could restart Milijuli Nepali so we could help people with trusted life-saving messages about COVID-19.

I then realised that I was not the only one to have thought that. I was called in for a meeting by our Country Director, Shobhana Pradhan, who had also felt the same urge to relaunch our Lifeline communication programme to save lives during the pandemic. That meeting was remarkably different from all our previous meetings at BBC Media Action. Everyone sat at least two metres away from each other, and everyone wore masks.

When a second coronavirus case was confirmed in March, Nepal announced an indefinite nationwide lockdown. The government also sealed off the long porous Nepal-India border, and all domestic and international flights were suspended indefinitely.

We rapidly realised supporting our local media partners to make Lifeline programming would need to be virtual – and started testing video conferencing for remote mentoring.

The lockdown slowed the spread of the virus in Nepal, allowing the government and hospitals to buy valuable time to better prepare for an outbreak. It also gave us time to plan how we could produce daily Lifeline content during a pandemic.

Producing this programme after the earthquake had its own challenges, but at least we could go to the field and interact with people directly. But how do we record people's voices for radio when it would be morally, ethically, and even legally wrong to meet them?

We developed our plans to produce radio content with minimum physical contact with communities, while still interacting with them as much as possible. Our plans are simple: avoid going to the field, and conduct interviews mostly over phone. Our regular production meeting also takes place virtually.

By setting up a dedicated phoneline, we've ensured people can leave us direct messages. Our voicemail has started receiving encouraging messages by people from remote and inaccessible areas, where people rely on Milijuli Nepali for health information. One recently recorded voicemail came from Ran Maya Kandel, who called us from Baglung district in Nepal's remote western hills. She told us that she eagerly waits for Milijuli Nepali as the programme delivers 'important messages in interesting ways'.

She added: "I love Milijuli Nepali because its producers talk exactly like me, or like how we village people speak."

Our work has come just in time. Since the lockdown was lifted on 21 July, coronavirus cases and COVID-19 deaths have surged. In the six months after the first case, 40 people died of COVID-19. But once the country re-opened, the death toll almost tripled in just the first month.

The second season of Milijuli Nepali is now being aired through 46 radio stations, strategically selected from across the country so everyone can listen to it, wherever they are. The timing of our relaunch could not have been any better.

Similar but different

In 2015, we named our Lifeline radio show Milijuli Nepali because we wanted the programme to motivate all the Nepali people to stand together to physically help each other in rebuilding their houses, lives and livelihoods ravaged by the earthquake.

But in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the idea of helping each other to survive – it now means standing together by being physically apart.

In this new season, Milijuli Nepali still sticks to its approach of communicating trusted, actionable and vital messages in simple colloquial language, but it is now inspiring people to stand together in a way that has become the new normal for the post-pandemic world.

 

--

Bhuwan Timilsina is Project Manager for BBC Media Action, Nepal

This week sees the launch of Inclusive Futures. BBC Media Action joins disability and development specialists, and global leaders from 15 organisations coming together under one initiative. The goal is to ensure opportunities for people with disabilities and a future that’s disability inclusive. In Bangladesh, our journalism mentors Senjuti Masud and Bishawjit Das have been training journalists to improve how people with disabilities are portrayed in the media and tackle negative stereotyping and perceptions. Read their story…

“The way people with disabilities here are being portrayed in the media is from a lens of pity or sympathy,” Senjuti explains. “So, when employers are looking at them, they’re looking at them as a burden to the society, not good enough, not capable enough to contribute to the economy. This is what we want to challenge.

Through our training of media professionals, BBC Media Action shows journalists that disability inclusion widens the scope of their story. It gives another dimension and it presents your subject in a more positive way.”

Senjuti and Bishawjit are training around 150 journalists from all different formats: television, radio, online and print. “They are senior journalists who’ve been working for a while. They know what they’re doing; we are trying to adjust their lens a little bit so that they have this fresh perception about telling the story from a different angle. So far, stories focus on a very pitiful situation and deplorable conditions of people with disability,” Senjuti continues.

Bishawjit explains what is involved in the training. “We bring the journalists together in a room with a group of people with disabilities, so they learn from each other’s experiences,” he says. “We ask the journalists to write an inclusive story… The interesting thing is: not only do the other journalists analyse it, but we ask the people with disabilities to give their feedback by asking: ‘How does it sound to you? Is it really dignified enough?’

Senjuti adds, “We want to show that people with disabilities are an asset and they deserve equal dignity. And when media professionals are presenting them as part of their stories, whatever they’re talking about in media, be it an issue of public interest, economy, growth, the current political situation, they need to be included everywhere. Their voices need to be heard everywhere.”

“We have trained 150 journalists so far and Bangladesh is a country of thousands of journalists. I am proud that BBC Media Action has been part of this new initiative and journalists who were part of it have appreciated this effort so much. I hope more journalists will be able to reach more people. This is just a beginning.”

Bishawjit comments that “Since the training, we’ve noticed some of the journalists are already writing positive stories including people with disabilities. If you analyse the pre-training and post-training news, you will see a huge difference.”

“We saw the language being changed,” Senjuti adds. “I think it’s an amazing change to achieve in such a short period of time.

“Now we are creating a Facebook group where the journalists can talk about stories, to push them to keep talking about people with disability in a more engaging and interactive way. And there’s a little element of competition of who’s the best at making a change to the coverage – we’re going to declare them as champions.”

As part of the mentoring, Bishawjit and Senjuti offer a refresher training session with the journalists a couple of months later, as Bishawjit puts it…

“It’s to see whether they have forgotten anything…I’ve said to them: ‘I want to see at least 50 quality stories that would change the perspective of the audience!’”

 

--

BBC Media Action is one of 15 partners working together on Inclusive Futures which is supported by Sightsavers and funded by UK Aid. Learn more at the new website here: www.inclusivefutures.org

The original interviews above were posted by SightSavers here in June 2020, read the full article here or listen to a short audio interview with Bishawjit here as he joins other citizen reporters working towards a more inclusive future.

A young inter-faith couple falling in love and marrying despite their parents’ concerns, an adopted daughter on a mission to discover her biological family, a journalist and filmmaker tackling fake news, and a family-run tea shop that has faced fires, economic meltdowns and now the COVID-19 pandemic – and through many other twists, turns, trials and tribulations, The Tea Cup Diaries has it all.

Since its launch in 2015, the show has reached millions of listeners across Myanmar – promoting understanding, openness, and respect for people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Now in its eighth series, the show continues to touch the hearts of audiences with relatable characters who reflect the country’s rich ethnic and cultural diversity, and entertaining storylines that provide a window into the different lives, experiences and beliefs of its communities. In the process, it’s garnered a following of dedicated fans – like this group of weavers from remote Kachin state, who we featured back in 2016.

The Tea Cup Diaries is unique in its timely reflection of real-life events woven into the drama’s plotlines, and the impact of COVID-19 is no exception. Our team behind the show was quick to adapt to the upheaval – from setting up home recording studios, to introducing new storylines reflecting how different characters are dealing with the pandemic.

With the tea shop in the drama shut due to COVID-19, the characters are struggling to adapt and missing each other. Listeners follow them as they learn ways to keep themselves safe, asking each other: What are the rules? How do we keep our families safe? Are we allowed to go outside? Is there a vaccine and can local herbs cure us?

We’ve been following up each recent episode with a magazine-style programme in which we interview doctors, religious and community leaders, actors, celebrities and members of the public who have been quarantined or diagnosed with COVID-19. We talk about how their lives have changed during the pandemic – sharing diverse perspectives and fostering a sense of ‘we’re all in this together,’ regardless of ethnic or religious differences.

Since the beginning, we’ve used in-depth research to understand our audiences, explore their engagement with key communication objectives, and adjust content accordingly. The most recent findings from a panel study found that audiences were delighted to hear The Tea Cup Diaries continue to broadcast despite movement restrictions. Listeners reported learning about the ‘dos and don’ts’ of managing risks related to COVID-19 and enjoyed hearing how their favourite characters were dealing with these challenges:

 “Everything is included – such as washing hands, avoiding crowds and gatherings and talking from at least six feet away” – Female, 29, Ayeyarwady

“We should respect and follow [COVID-19 advice], as it is happening all over the world. We should not be neglectful and forget. [The show] is presenting according to what is practically happening outside – it is more complete and meaningful as they warn us with storylines and drama” – Male, 58, Bago

As access to the internet expands rapidly in Myanmar, and brings with it a burgeoning population of young Facebook users, we’ve also cultivated our own digital Tea Cup Diaries community. Almost 1 million people now follow the show’s Facebook page – where we bring the themes of the show and the country’s diverse culture to life even more vividly through engaging daily video and social content. At the same time, we’ve worked to improve our followers’ digital literacy to help them navigate fake news and mis- and dis-information – all of which threaten to sow further division in the country.

Five years of The Tea Cup Diaries is a truly wonderful milestone and reflects an amazing creative journey with so many talented people who have produced and supported the show over the years. We are grateful for our loyal audience who have laughed, loved, learned new things, and travelled with us to understand more about Myanmar and, of course, each other.

We are all hugely proud of what the show has achieved and look forward to what the next 5 years (hopefully!) have in store. But, for now, it’s time to celebrate and raise a glass of – you guessed it – tea!

--

The Tea Cup Diaries is broadcast nationally on MRTV and Myanmar Radio, and is currently funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD). Previous funders are USAID, DFID and DAI.

I’m certainly not the first person to say that media has enormous power – both to reach people far and wide, but also to help us understand, discuss and inspire action on the most important issues facing the world today.

At a time when media is often co-opted and used to spread disinformation, there is a huge need for trusted media to play an educational role in society. And, for me, there’s no bigger problem that media can help us understand than climate change.

For too long, the conversation around climate change has focussed on science, policies and governmental commitments. People’s lived experiences of extreme weather exacerbated by climate change have been missing – especially those who feel the impacts most.

At BBC Media Action, we believe that addressing climate change requires action at all levels of society, and that media has the power to bring together ordinary people, civil society, and leaders to discuss sustainable development that benefits everyone.

Our Indonesia project aims to do exactly that.

Indonesia is one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas producers, with the vast majority of emissions stemming from forest destruction and degradation. The Government has pledged to reduce these emissions; having an engaged public that cares about their forests and holds their leaders to account will help ensure these green commitments are fulfilled.

From our previous work in Bangladesh and Cambodia, we know that media can inform and educate audiences affected by changing weather, inspire individuals and communities to take action to protect their lives and livelihoods, and prompt governments to respond with policies for more sustainable development.

Our challenge in Indonesia is to engage an audience which doesn’t currently feel close to the problem: young people.

Around the world, we’ve seen young people lead the way when it comes to taking action on climate. Youth will make up an estimated 44% of Indonesia’s population by 2030, and there are encouraging signs that they could follow that path too. But our initial research shows us that this largely urban population doesn’t connect with forests or understand how deforestation affects their daily lives. They also don’t know how they can get involved.

Our first task will be to grab their attention – young Indonesians are huge consumers of social media, particularly on mobile. So our project will be ‘digital first’, challenging us to create high-quality, viral content that can cut through a sea of competing information to inform, entertain and inspire young audiences about their environment and the future of their planet.

To do this, we believe a sense of identity is key. Young Indonesians care about what their peers think about them and crave their respect. If we can create a culture of “green kudos” among friendship groups, and make it ‘cool’ to care about the forests, we could spark a generation of young Indonesians who actively engage with their leaders on sustainable development.

This engagement cannot be tokenistic, which is why we’ll be backing up our digital content with a high-quality TV discussion programme and a challenge-style reality TV show. These will provide young people with the tools to understand how climate-related issues, such as air pollution and water security, affect their lives, and how they can engage with leaders on these issues.

Overall, we know this is a formidable task. But we also know from our charity’s work over the last 20 years that trusted media provide space for constructive public participation and debate – something which is much needed when it comes to climate change.

People need to be at the heart of the response to climate change. By encouraging people to work together, media really can change the world for the better.

--

Ankur Garg is Country Director for BBC Media Action Indonesia.

Our work in Indonesia is funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.

Like many Cambodians, I’m noticing changes in the weather in my country. The temperature is getting hotter, floods and storms are happening more frequently, and our dry season is longer than ever before.

With 75% of the population living in rural areas and relying on farming or fishing to make a living, these weather changes are already having a big impact on people’s lives and livelihoods.

I helped conduct BBC Media Action’s newly-published research exploring how people across Cambodia are experiencing these weather changes, and whether or not they’re doing anything about them. The report outlines priority audiences, the challenges they are facing in responding to climate change, and tips for how media professionals can communicate climate issues to them more effectively.

We interviewed 1660 people across five regions of Cambodia, and conducted in-depth community discussions. Most people (85%) who we surveyed felt that the weather changes could be having an effect on their health. When I visited Anlong Raing community in the Tonle Sap region, for instance, many people told me they thought their children had been getting diarrhoea more often, and in some cases more serious diseases like Typhoid.

People also felt that weather changes were affecting their income (81%), and what’s more, we discovered that rather than take simple steps such as changing their farming methods, people were more likely to make big life changes in order to get by - 33% said they had changed their job as a result.

Transforming lives through TV

That’s where our brand new TV documentary series – Don’t Wait For Rain – comes in. Informed by our research, the show aims to improve knowledge of climate risks and encourage Cambodians to make easy and affordable changes to become more resilient to the changing climate.

We filmed in locations across Cambodia to showcase the real weather issues people are facing – from flash flooding in the mountainous area of Kampong Speu province to lower fishing yields in the Tonle Sap.

Providing role models to encourage action

For me, one of our most interesting findings is that there is often a social barrier to adapting to climate change. In our survey, 37% of respondents said that they weren’t responding to climate change due to being fearful of discussing actions with others, and 35% said that it didn’t fit with their religious beliefs or community culture.

This was an important insight which we reported to the TV production team. We knew that trust would be a key factor when helping people adapt to new techniques, and that audiences would need to see people they could relate to in the show adapting successfully to be encouraged to try it out for themselves.

That’s why in each episode we pair up an ‘impact’ community struggling to cope with the weather with local experts who have overcome climate challenges.

For example, in one episode, audiences see a female farmer called Ming Mao who lives in Central Cambodia. Ming Mao felt helpless when all of her crops were washed away by flood waters, an increasingly common risk in her region. We paired her with a local expert who teaches her how to build a raised vegetable garden to grow food above flood levels. When she’s revisited later in the episode after another flooding, Ming Mao’s new garden has remained completely untouched!

A more resilient future

My hope is that Don’t Wait For Rain proves to be a hit with our audiences and helps them to better cope with the weather challenges we’re currently facing, and will face in the future. I also hope that other media organisations will use our research findings to tailor their own communications, helping even more Cambodians to adapt.

At the very least, I believe the show will prompt awareness of these weather changes and lead to families and communities questioning what more they could do to prepare for further unpredictability. But of course, what I really want is for people to take action!

--

Khuon Chandore is the former Research Manager for BBC Media Action Cambodia.

Our factual TV series Don’t Wait For Rain is on air nationally in Cambodia from late February until May 2019. The show is part of our Neighbours Together project, funded by Sida, which also includes outreach activities and social media.

To discover more about how people from other countries in Asia are experiencing climate change, check out our Data Portal where you can find further data from our Climate Asia series.

Sarah:

The first thing I hear in the refugee camp is, “Rohingya women can do anything, I can do anything.”

Ayesha, about 60, shows us into her makeshift home with grace and warmth. My BBC Media Action colleagues and I sit on the beaten earth floor of her plastic hut dwelling. We’re in one of the biggest refugee camps in the world: Kutupalong, just outside Cox’s Bazar in southern Bangladesh.

Her welcome is impressive and humbling. She has her baby grandson in her arms. His mother and father are conspicuous by their absence. We don’t ask where they are.

Four writers, a drama director and I are in the camp to talk to any of the Rohingya refugees kind enough to give us their time. But unlike so many of the journalists and NGO workers present, we’re not here to talk about their recent traumatic experiences, instead we want to know about life in the camp and how they’re coping now.

Earlier in the year, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs granted funding to Norwegian Church Aid and BBC Media Action to create a radio drama for Rohingya communities, specifically to help women and girls. As the project’s radio drama consultant, I’m here to help shape the production team’s ideas into a 20-episode synopsis.

Listening to real women’s stories

BBC Media Action often uses drama as a way to approach sensitive issues, and one of them is what NGOs call Gender-Based Violence, or GBV. This laudably non-judgmental expression is new to me and I can see the advantage of its neutrality. This term respects cultural practices, whereas terms such as ‘wife beating’, ‘sexual assault’ or ‘grievous bodily harm’ could be seen as pejorative and risk shutting down conversations around the issue. By understanding the experiences of Rohingya women and girls, and exploring them openly, this new radio drama has the opportunity to help address sexual violence and abuse.

Back in the office, my Media Action colleagues presented their excellent new research into GBV among the Rohingya community in Cox’s Bazar. It revealed that many Rohingya women experience forms of GBV such as child marriage, intimate partner violence and sexual abuse. In the context of a poorly-lit, overcrowded camp, the risks intensify. This research is an invaluable resource, providing accurate evidence which the team can consult when trying out new plot lines.

Changing the story

We know that character-led, long form drama has the power to shift opinions, and the hope is that this serial will subtly increase knowledge around GBV through stories with which both men and women can empathise. This drama, created specifically for the Rohingya crisis, will also inform people about the support services available to them in the camp.

But perhaps the drama’s true power is presenting the flip-side, illustrating the largely untapped potential of women and girls.

So the team and I got down to the job of sticking plot lines to the wall, creating the stories for each character over 20 episodes. The writing and directing team were used to working for screen, so I ran a couple of workshops on the relationship between radio scriptwriting and sound effects. The team tried out their draft scripts with their backs turned to the actors – the test was whether they could ‘see’ in their mind’s eye what was physically happening in the scene and which character was talking.

And the production team aren’t alone, the Rohingya audience is unused to radio drama too. One of the challenges is to ensure that the audience understand that the episodes aren’t a real, fly-on-the-wall documentary, but fiction.

Entertaining and informing

The refugees in Kutupalong have little to do and face an uncertain future in their new home of Bangladesh. A drama that could entertain and distract a bored and traumatised people, even for a moment, must be useful. But crucially, it also has the potential to get them talking, asking wider questions around their situation: it could be massive.

Back in the camp, Ayesha walks us up the hill on which her hut is precariously perched. Together, we look out over the vast camp, past the trees and the water to Myanmar. Home.

Perhaps it might come as a surprise to the menfolk in her community to hear Ayesha talk to us so fluently, confidently, proudly about her skills as a net maker. So we have given her a voice – basing one of our characters on her.

After all she can do anything.

--

Sarah Bradshaw has worked for BBC Radio Drama as a producer, director and writer. She’s also worked as a consultant for BBC Media Action’s very own Life in Lulu.

Our new radio drama for Rohingya communities is currently in piloting and is due to air in Cox’s Bazar in early 2019. To find out more about how we’re responding to the Rohingya crisis and how listening to those affected informs our work, take a look at this short video.

If you’d like to learn more about how drama can be an effective tool for tackling sensitive issues such as gender-based violence, you might like to read this blog written by our Executive Director, Caroline Nursey, last year.

Saiyada started listening to Beggunor Lai inside her home, sometimes joined by her husband. But after a few months, she began hosting the listener groups where fellow women in the camp came together to hear the podcast and discuss the issues raised in the show with each other.

After hearing an episode about health, Saiyada was motivated to visit her nearest health centre with her husband. She had been experiencing difficulties with her pregnancy and the doctor she heard on the programme prompted listeners to seek professional advice. Saiyada was seen quickly by a doctor who helped her with her symptoms, resulting in the healthy arrival of a baby boy – Abdul.

Then in June of this year, Abdul unfortunately fell sick. Her husband took him to the health centre, but returned without a solution. Empowered by advice she received via our podcast, Saiyada convinced her husband that she should accompany him to the health centre and explain the symptoms to the doctor as she had been monitoring her son’s illness closely. The following day, they both returned to see the doctor and Saiyada was able to properly explain the issues herself, resulting in the doctor prescribing appropriate medication and their son quickly recovering.

“Now I am telling my neighbours to listen this radio program – which has opened my eyes”, Saiyada said.

The majority of Rohingya women are typically confined to the home and reliant on male members of the family to access any sort of information, including how and where to access different kinds of aid. This can be particularly difficult for women who unfortunately don’t have male members of family – for instance those who have been widowed or separated from their fathers or brothers. Given that women make up just over half of the population in Cox’s Bazar, this creates a huge information vacuum.

That’s where BBC Media Action comes in and why listening groups are so important for women like Saiyada.

Information is aid

You may think that the most important types of aid needed by those affected by the Rohingya crisis are food, shelter and water. But timely and reliable information is also crucial so that people can know where and how to access aid in the first place.

Listener groups are a rapidly growing and increasingly relevant and effective mechanism for providing information and advice to displaced Rohingya communities, as well as for collecting views, opinions and feedback to inform the humanitarian response to the crisis.

For Saiyada, the information she received via Beggunor Lai and the listener group both prompted her to take action for her child’s health, but also informed her where she could go and who she could speak to in order to get the help she and her family needed.

Receiving the right information at the right time empowered her in the decision-making process for her family’s wellbeing. I feel proud to play a part in helping to improve the lives of Rohingya women, like Saiyada, by engaging them through our radio programmes and podcasts.

 

--

Mukta Roy is a Humanitarian Officer in Bangladesh.

Saturday 25th August marks the first anniversary of the start of the Rohingya emergency, which in August 2017 saw an unprecedented number of Rohingya refugees flee from Myanmar’s Rakhine State across the border into neighbouring Bangladesh - specifically in the district of Cox’s Bazar.

BBC Media Action has been at the heart of the response to the Rohingya emergency from the very start, ensuring refugees and host communities have access to vital information and can convey their needs to humanitarian agencies on the ground.

We’ve helped set up and support 233 listener groups currently operating in 12 camps, like the one described by Mukta, and the number is growing rapidly.

BBC Media Action’s support to radio broadcasters in Cox’s Bazar is funded by UNICEF. Our work training and supporting listener groups is funded by IOM, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and UNICEF.

“My husband was killed in Myanmar, and I had to flee with my children, leaving everything behind. I didn’t know where I am going. But, after coming to this camp I am living a much better life.” Rohingya widow, Kutupalong camp, Bangladesh.

In late January I visited the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar to find out how the community gets its information and the media they preferred – to inform the humanitarian programmes we’re supporting local broadcasters to make in response to the emergency.

It was my first visit and I had mixed feelings – empowered at being part of this huge emergency response, yet not ready to confront the brutal reality of what so many people had faced.

While designing any research we always map the ethical considerations before we go to the field. I was hesitant to ask people to relive difficult experiences, and very conscious that Rohingya people are managing extreme trauma.

However, whilst people were distressed I felt the interviews acted as a catharsis for them as they talked about their past and expressed their fears about what the future held.

Many aid agencies around the world are responding to this unprecedented humanitarian crisis after more than 670,000 Rohingya people fled into Bangladesh last year. However, the illiteracy rate is high, so people living in the camps are often not aware they’re entitled to relief or how to access the services available.

This is where BBC Media Action comes in.

Since October 2017 we’ve been supporting local partners to make humanitarian programmes in the local dialect - which is, largely, understood by Rohingya people in the camps and the host communities in Cox’s Bazar.

But, we wanted to do more to reach the affected communities.

So, through focus groups we explored how people are able to access information. It was fascinating.

We discovered the Rohingya people in the camps get information via word of mouth from “Majhis”, selected leaders who, in turn, acquire information from aid workers. Religious leaders are also a trusted authority.

The majority of Rohingya are Muslims. Women tend to leave the home only if they have something important to do – and they cover themselves up while outside. “We pray during our breaks and talk to our neighbours, that is our only entertainment,” as one woman told me.

It means that many women rely on the men in their family for information – and those without male relatives (such as the large number of women who were widowed before leaving Myanmar) find it even harder to find out what is going on.

Most women have no access to mobile phones and even men, who own a phone struggle to recharge them because there is little electricity in the camps.

In other humanitarian emergencies, such as in Jordan and Darfur, our listener groups have helped vulnerable people – such as women and children – to get information and support each other. 

But here, whilst some women feel able to come to the listening group, others only attend if they are women-led, women-only groups and held inside homes or shelters.

Face-to-face communication

These research insights are being used to shape our communication plans – radio programmes, podcasts, vital face-to-face information at community hubs as well as sharing our content for the door-to-door communication carried out by UNICEF and other partners. And, we now know that making content aimed at women, as well as training and providing this content to information workers at the places that women (and children) are able to visit - is key.

But to continue making effective programming for displaced people and host communities (many of whom told us of their concerns about losing land, trees and other assets), there is still more we need to understand. For example, how we can work with the local and religious leaders to disseminate information using their networks. Likewise, we need to find a way to disseminate our media content further in the areas with scarce electricity. And, we need to continue to find ways to connect, support and inform female-led families and other vulnerable groups.

Without a doubt this is complex humanitarian emergency – where information is aid – so we continue to strive to reach those most affected with vital and life-saving information.

 

 

 

Aniqa Hossain is a Research Officer in Bangladesh

--

With our support, Bangladesh’s state broadcaster and Radio Naf have now broadcast over 100 episodes of the radio programme Beggunar Lai (For Everyone), with our support Radio Naf is now producing Shishur Hashi (Children’s Smile) a programme aimed at children. A monthly programme called Betar Sanglap (Radio Dialogue) - aired by the state broadcaster – is offering a space for the local Bangladeshi communities affected by the emergency to ask questions and share their views with local officials and aid providers.

BBC Media Action’s work within the Rohingya emergency response is funded by Global Affairs Canada, the UK Department for International Development and UNICEF; and is delivered in partnership with Action Against Hunger and IOM.

The scale of the humanitarian crisis is visible on the road winding away from Cox's Bazar long before you reach the camps.

Empty aid trucks head back to town as the landscape shifts from palm trees to rice fields and then hillsides full of shacks with orange and blue plastic sheeting for roofs.

These camps are now home to nearly 860,000 Rohingya people who have fled violence in Myanmar - with more than 600,000 arriving since August 2017. That's more than the population of Sheffield.

There is no disguising that it's a major emergency and getting bigger and more complicated. It is predicted that 48,000 babies will be born into these conditions where poor sanitation increases the risk that deadly diseases will spread quickly. People are traumatised: they have left behind their homes and livelihoods and witnessed unspeakable violence. Many are now at risk of exploitation by criminals.

In a situation like this, access to information is as important as food, water and shelter - it saves lives. And we are there, supporting our local radio station to produce Lifeline radio programmes providing vital information to Rohingya people on how to survive, cope and recover.

Beggunor Lai (For Everyone) is broadcast locally on Bangladesh Betar, Bangladesh's state broadcaster and Radio Naf, a community radio station. With our support, Radio Naf also produces Shishur Hashi (Children) a programme aimed at children, who make up more than half of those displaced from Myanmar.

I visited Cox's Bazar to see first-hand how we're delivering this life-saving work and the impact it is having. People gathered around a wind-up radio in one of the day centres set up in the camp - a makeshift structure with a corrugated iron roof - and it was clear that access to information is a critical need. I also met our team and local broadcasters who all felt proud and enthusiastic to be producing programmes that are making life bearable for people in desperate need.

Programmes have given advice on getting vaccinated against cholera and diphtheria, finding clean water, nutrition and keeping children and other vulnerable people safe. As cyclone season approached, the shows explained how to strengthen temporary shelters in preparation for storms.

And they give Rohingya people a voice through phone-ins and vox pops - vital for mental well-being.

The programmes - funded by Unicef - are broadcast in the local Chittagong dialect that the Rohingya people can understand. And we are working with a range of partners to set up listening groups, like the one I saw, because few people have radios of their own.

There are serious problems in store unless more land becomes available to build secure shelters before the monsoon season starts in April. The hillside camps are at risk of serious mudslides, and disease will spread if floods pollute water points.

And the next stage - with a new tranche of UN funding - involves us working with Internews and Translators Without Borders to strengthen the two-way communication between people affected by the crisis and aid providers so that Rohingya people can help shape the services and information that they receive.

I have never come across a crisis where communication is recognised as such an integral part of the humanitarian response - thanks in large part to our work in Bangladesh over many years to help prepare for natural disasters. The work is impressive - but there is much more to be done.

The walls are splashed with colour. A girl stands in the centre of the image, her arm extended, brandishing a pen. In one corner sits a crow - a bird regarded as a pariah in many societies. A monkey hangs above waves, clouds and local monuments. These scenes on the set of Taja Sawal (Fresh Questions) were painted by volunteers and are designed to capture the spirit of the new programme’s young audience: their concerns, queries, frustration, their eagerness to be heard, and their need to be seen.

A fresh start

True to its name, Taja Sawal offers a fresh take on things. It is a forum for Nepal’s youth to share their perspectives on a host of issues, including the education system, outward migration, unemployment, and corruption. There are, otherwise, few opportunities for young people to chat about these things in public.

Taja Sawal grew out of our long-running discussion programme Sajha Sawal (Common Questions)."We had always wanted to do something new to engage more with the young audience we have online - they are the most active population on the Sajha Sawal Facebook page," says Dipak Bhattarai, the editor. "We did a pilot Facebook Live show which was received very well last year."

The voice of the youth

We approached two vibrant young people Bivek Rai and Sujita Chaudhary to present the show - both are under 20. Bivek was working as a member of Sajha Sawal’s production staff and Sujita Chaudhary – an engineering student – was spotted when she asked a tough question during a Sajha Sawal episode about politicians meddling in the running of colleges.

The two presenters come from quite different backgrounds. Bivek, born in Udaypur district of eastern Nepal, comes from an indigenous ethnic group, while Sujita is from the Madheshi community, from the plains of Tarai. "I always wanted to do something like standing up for something, as I’m known for being a rebel," says Sujita. "Presenting Taja Sawal makes me feel like I finally have a platform to not just voice my own opinions but also those of others like me."

"It’s a different kind of programme because young people hardly get a chance to discuss concepts like federalism", adds Bivek. "Sujita and I basically act as moderators, but we also get chance to learn things and ask our questions in the programme when we converse with the guests and participants. And then there’s interaction with Facebook friends."

Presenters, participants and guests sit around in a semi-circle discuss subjects ranging from music and poetry to the newly-elected local representatives. The tone of the show is informal and guests freely talk about personal as well as professional issues. "It’s a free-thinking platform, where there are no boundaries. And that means boosting confidence while allowing young people to talk about their issues and increase understanding about politics," adds Bivek.

"It’s about the connection. When both presenter and the guest are young, it makes a difference."

Doing it differently

And because it is streamed live on Facebook, audience members get a chance to interact.

"Politics should be broken down and simplified. That’s why a show like this is important. Instead of just talking politics and parties, the young people need an explanation and chances to interact with leaders," says Anita Adhikari, a student, who has been a regular viewer and has posted questions to the show.

"Facebook Lives have been used by a number of forums and media organisations, and done quite at random. But Taja Sawal is entertaining and educational as well, which is why it draws someone like me to it," she adds.

Six episodes in, the viewing figures show how Taja Sawal’s popularity has grown. The latest Facebook Live currently has 164,000 views, more than doubling the online audience of the first programme.

The six Taja Sawal episodes have been viewed a total of more than 661,000 times so far– with engagement and audience figures increasing all the time.

Hosting a show together is not always easy, especially a live show. "It’s is an experiment for all of us, even our audience has not tasted such a programme before," says co-host Sujita "but times are constantly changing and I think we have a programme that has a future."

Watch this space.

 

 

--

BBC Media Action is not funded by the BBC licence fee and depends on the generous support of donors. Help support our work here.