Five Community radio stations in Bangladesh now involved increasing community awareness on Long Acting and Reversible Contraceptives (LARC) Method of Family Planning through radio magazine program under a nine month project titled“Capacity Building on Long Acting and Reversible Contraceptives (LARC)”. The project is implementing under the coordination of Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and communication (BNNRC) in collaboration with the Directorate of Family Planning and Health, under the Ministry of Health and Family Planning of The People’s Republic of Bangladesh andIpas Bangladesh.
The Program aimed to provide accurate informationon deferent methods of Family Planning and service center among the eligible couple and also community people for better service and reducing birth rate.
Under this project five community radio stations of the country Lokobetar 99.2fm (Barguna), Radio Pollikontho 99.2fm (Moulvibazar), Radio SagarGiri 99.2fm (Sitakunda) Krshi Radio 98.8fm (Barguna) and Radio Naf 99.2fm (Teknaf) started broadcasting magazine program in the name of “SukhiSangsar’’ from 13 December’2015.
Until 30 December, 2015 the radio stations have broadcasted two episodes among eight episodes of the magazine program on deferent methods of Family Planning and information on local service centers.The programs were rebroadcasted two times respectively on the day after broadcasting and first rebroadcasting.
The 45min. program is designed in two segments, first is a 25 minutes magazine program. It is combination of report, vox-pop, interview, promo, public service announcement (PSA), song, and drama etc. The second segment in the program is a 20 min. dialogue and phone in, where three local guests discussed on that broadcasting issue. They would be trained doctors from Upazilla Health Center, District Hospital, MCWC, Trained Government Doctors, Family Welfare Assistant (FWA), Family Welfare Visitor (FWV)and family planning method usersetc. Besides, there is a quiz contest system in the program. In every espied, a question is asked to the audience on issues that broadcasted and one personis selected through lottery from who responded correctly. Later he/she are awarded by radio set
It canbe expected the opportunity to initiate the dialogue between 120 trained doctors and local health experts(per episode 3 guests x 8 episode x 5 radio stations=120) and community radio as well community people through thedialogue and phone in program.
Under the project activities, total 500 copies of Hand Book on Family Planning methods and the service centers will distribute at the broadcasting area of five radio stations. This will help to the targeted listeners to preserve and utilize the knowledge properly. Besides the radio stations will organize threemeetings at local level where a trained doctor / Family Welfare Assistant (FWA)/Family Welfare Visitor (FWV) will discuss with 20-25 eligible couple and deferent family planning method users and give them accurate information on different methods of Family Planning and local service center. The participants will be selected from the membersof radio listener clubs.
Mentioned that, 13 youth and youth women (community broadcasters)have got better understanding, knowledge and gathered skills on how to produce a fruitful magazine program on the issues through a day long project orientation programon 29th November 2015. It is most important that, through the magazine program 1.4 million community people of the target areas (05 CR station areas in 05 districts of the country) will be aware and encurese to use of deferent methods of Family Planning especially LARC Method. Ultimately it will help to improve health condition of rural people through reducing birth rate and mortality rate of child and mother.