The Phase II of the ‘Development of Community Radio Continuous Improvement Toolkit (CR-CIT)’ will see the toolkit being field tested in five Community Radio stations across India and Bangladesh between December 2013 and April 2014. This field-testing project, supported by the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA)/Commonwealth of Learning (COL) would be undertaken by the UNESCO Chair on Community Media team, University of Hyderabad. This phase seeks to subject the toolkit to actual field conditions, and get feedback on both the process as well as the content of the toolkit. Inputs from the field testing will go into revising the toolkit.
Before the field testing of CR-CIT in Bangladesh, there will also be a 3-day Validation Workshop in Dhaka, with operating community radio stations in Bangladesh, to adapt the toolkit to the Bangladesh context. This workshop is being organised by the BNNRC (Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communications). In the Phase I of the project, the Community Radio Continuous Improvement Toolkit (CR-CIT) was developed, published and released in New Delhi. It is now available in the public domain (http://blog.uccommedia.uohyd.ac.in/uploads/2013/08/CR_Toolkit-lowres.pdf ).
The CR Continuous Improvement Toolkit provides an easy-to-use framework that allows CR stations to periodically assess themselves on their performance. The toolkit has been drafted keeping in view: (a) the national community radio policy guidelines (in India) which have several mandatory provisions; and (b) cer- tain non-negotiable principles of community media globally, such as community participation and ownership, access and inclusion to marginalised groups, gender equity, community-generated content, emphasis on local cultures and identities, and transparency and accountability in practice.
The toolkit provides for indicators of performance along nine broad parameters and the themes such as participation, inclusion, gender, capacity building, etc. have been treated as core principles that cut across all the nine parameters.
(Compiled by Himabindu Chintakunta)
