MUMBAI: The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) radio health project has initiated a special community radio service for school students in Kerala. The radio programs will commence from the academic year in June.

The pilot project has been initiated in five schools in Trivandrum, where a certain number of students and teachers will be trained and educated on health-related subjects. They will later also be trained in technical equipment and production like media and radio production, programming, scripting, software, voice recording and more. The developers are currently looking out for an agency to help them deliver the technical training to the students.

On the basis of the training given to the students, they will start producing their own programs dealing with topics like communicable and non-communicable diseases, nutrition, hygiene and adolescent education amongst others. The programs will be broadcast in the schools through the public address system, and the best programs will then air on AIR Trivandrum and eight other FM and AM stations across Kerala where the project currently broadcasts.

Speaking with Radioandmusic.com, NRHM radio health consultant Dr GR Santhosh Kumar said, “We aim to create awareness on health issues amongst school children and then train them to educate other people as well. Once they start producing their own programs, the best from them will be aired as a special program for 15 minutes on radio stations.”

The NRHM has sanctioned an amount of Rs 4.5 lakhs for the pilot project and is also receiving support from the education department of the state. While currently the revenue earning streams for the project are limited, they aim to utilize their unused 70 seconds of commercial time to get in special sponsorship ads.

Based on the success of this project, the NRHM also has plans to further expand the initiative and take it forward to other schools too.

“There are around 3000 health clubs in various schools across the state and we will promote this idea in other schools depending on the success story of this project. So we are waiting to see how all of this turns out in the months ahead,” he added.

The mission currently broadcasts programs worth 15 minutes daily on AIR Trivandrum and other stations across the state. They are now yet to decide on the broadcast timings of the programs from the new initiative, by either extending the time or replacing the earlier programs broadcast with the student created ones.