PHGN

Augustine Veliath

What do you do when injustice is done to children around you? You pick up your mobile and give a missed call on 080 4113 7280.Savita Rath from Raigarh, Odisha  did this.When the local anganwadi stopped serving food she called this number.She got a call back. She recorded her story.The next day officials visited the village and arranged cooked food for children. An official has assured the villagers in writing that never again the food supplies will be stopped.

Several days after food was delivered, Savita filed another report thanking the people who had called authorities on behalf of the children in her care. http://www.cgnetswara.org/index.php?id=3639Tapan Das from Nuapada district of Odisha  speaks of a colleague who made  a missed call on the same number.   His complaint was  that a school has remained closed for seven months, because the teacher was absent.The tribal children were deprived both education and their mid day meal.Thanks to the call he made, the school has now reopened. http://www.cgnetswara.org/index.php?id=8299 CGNet Swara is a voice-based portal, freely accessible via mobile phone, It allows anyone  to report and listen to stories of local interest. Reported stories are moderated by journalists and become available for playback online as well as over the phone (+91 8041137280). To use it, they call a phone number using any mobile (or fixed line) phone. Callers are prompted to press "1" to record a new message, and "2" to listen to messages that have already been recorded.

Once a message has been recorded from the field, professional, trained journalists, who access the system using a Web-based interface, review and verify the report. Approved reports are then made available for playback over the phone. The reports also can be accessed on the CGNet Swara website. Subscribers to the news service then get a prompt on their own cell phones that a new story has been posted. Villagers – many of them illiterate, with little access to community news in their local language – call a phone number and listen to the story.CGNet Swara was launched as part of the Knight International Journalism Fellowships, a program of the International Center for Journalists. Subranshu Choudhary is the mastermind behind CGnet Swara, which loosely translates as “the voice of Chattisgarh.” The CGnet Swara has gone beyond Chattisgarh and could become a model for all of India.From community to community, word has spread that a quick cell phone call can lead to food deliveries for hungry children, government investigation of police brutality, payment for workers, even access to needed medications.  

Swara helps hold officials accountable, it delivers important information, and it is an invaluable communications tool for tribal communities. “As a journalist,” Choudhary says, “I found the mainstream media completely cut off from the locals of Chattisgarh.” He began with a vision: to provide a news service for the impoverished people of this vast region. Because the tribal communities have severely limited power supplies, the challenge was finding a means of mass communication they could readily access. Partnering with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Microsoft Research India, he developed a low-tech system that essentially turns cell phones into community radios. The first of its kind, the project is a prototype that could be replicated in remote areas around the world. With funding from UNICEF, Choudhary has trained a corps of citizen journalists. The stories they have filed are making a difference. One report highlighted community concerns about a liquor store located in front of a school. After the report aired, the head of the district ordered the shop to be closed. Calls now average 300 per day, and some of the reports are also sent by email to a group of 1,700 activists and journalists. Mainstream media outlets have begun to pick up some of the reports, giving far greater exposure for tribal issues. Choudhary was a BBC South Asia producer for more than 10 years. He also has served as a media trainer for the BBC World Service Trust, the United Nations and Indian universities.

The CGNet Swara server can be easily replicated. The system requirements are:

• A desktop computer running Linux and Asterisk.
• An Internet connection (for hosting the Web server).
• A telephony interface like the Topex Mobilink IP to enable calls via a cellular SIM card.

The people behind CGnet Swara will be  happy to offer guidance to other organizations who are seeking to establish similar services around the world.

Shubhranshu Choudhari

The Founder of CGnetswara