MUMBAI: MY FM bags bronze in the New York Festivals Radio Award in the Best Community Service category. MY FM Chandigarh initiated the awareness drive of eye donation through a unique on-air and on ground activity on the occasion of Diwali.

MY FM RJ Jassi incidentally came across a rickshawala who was striving hard to save money for his son’s eye surgery. His son Vinod an 18-year boy had lost complete vision in one eye and had a rapidly diminishing vision in the other. MY FM team decided to help out Vinod so that this Diwali he could also see the lights and start a new life. Thus ‘Ek Diya Vinod Ke Naam’ was conceptualised to give a better and happier life to Vinod.

MY FM RJs and team made diyas (lamp), painted and decorated them. RJs invited listeners and people of Chandigarh to come and purchase diyas for any money wish to donate for the activity. Alternatively MY FM RJs went sector to sector selling Diyas in a touch point activity. With this initiative, a large number of people from the city got associated with us and contributed whole heartedly. We had school children collecting money from their school, teachers, parents so that Vinod could see. The activity also saw city Administrators, Joint Commissioner Rajiv Gupta and Deputy Commissioner Mohd. Shahin support and endorse our initiative. The generous donations helped us collect more than three lakh. The entire amount was used for the surgery of and treatment for Vinod’s eyes. MY FM also promoted the need for eye donation through the activity.

The activity struck the right chord with jury of NYF Awards and MY FM won a Bronze award in the category. Commenting on the win, MY FM, CEO, Harrish M Bhatia, said “Our belief in our brand philosophy of ‘Jiyo Dil Se’ is a guiding force and inspires us to keep creating relevant activities for our listeners which in turn benefit the entire community.”