Achievements

Anna Community Radio got the national award for good practices under the thematic category in 2010-11. The award was given for the series on Science for Health and Nutrition for Women.

Anna Community Radio has been able to make a partnership with the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, the Chennai Police, the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravida Housing and Development Corporation, the Sankara Nethralaya eye hospital, Cancer Institute, Kalakshetra, Banyan, Alcoholic Anonymous, Spastic Society, Ability Foundation, the National Institute for Visually Handicapped, CRY, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, Blue Cross, SCAN Foundation, REACH, and Apollo Hospitals.

The weekly live show with the community called ‘Samuthaya Nerkanal’ (face-to-face with the community) is a hit. This has completed seven years of continuous broadcasts, and succeeded in forming three women’s self-help groups. It is a phone-in programme with the community in which several social problems were taken up by bringing in experts in different walks of life such as police officers, environmental experts, safety experts, and making them interact with the community members through Wireless Local Loop (WLL).

Another programme ‘Saidayin Ethiroli’ (echo of Saidapet) was to identify problems in one specific community and to find solutions and air it. For example, cleaning of the Adyar river, for which the officials were contacted and the river was cleaned. Many other civil problems in Saidapet were also solved through this programme. Interviews with ordinary people like gypsies, snake charmers, and housemaids were done. The gypsies were brought to the studios of Anna Community Radio and were interviewed about their lifestyle, food habits, culture and day-to-day problems. Followed by the gypsies, many other communities were interviewed about their lifestyles.

Science projects such as Science for Empowerment of Women entitled ‘Sakthi Arivayadi’ (women, know your power) and another on Science for Health and Nutrition of Women entitled ‘Nalam Peruvai Thozhi’ (get well, fellow women), were main science projects for the women funded by the Department of Science and Technology (each project funded for about Rs. 16,00,000), Government of India, and broadcast by Anna Community Radio which involved the communities for programming, study and impact analysis. These projects helped Anna Community Radio to learn well about its listeners and to boost up programming to satisfy the need of the communities through its programmes.