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RADIO UDAAN
Tune in; to Radio Udaan, the Internet community Radio station that has come to light the lives of countless visually impaired Indians in its short stint of three years:
“Udaan”, is Hindi for “taking flight”. Radio Udaan calls itself “A flight of life”. Each day this community radio based in India takes thousands of its listeners through myriad experiences with the help of their programmes. An initiative conceptualised, produced, and broadcast by persons with vision impairment, it has the distinction of being the first of its kind in the country.
Radio Udaan hovers across more than 100 countries and envelops more than 20,000 listeners every month. It is fashioned with a purpose of serving listeners by providing information coupled with entertainment through radio programs by the Radio Jockeys of Radio Udaan.
WHY THE NEED OF RADIO UDAAN AROSE:
In India there are around 857 television channels and 837 radio stations in different cities. But how many of them cover the issues, events, achievements, tortures, schemes, facilities, laws, etc. pertaining to disable community?
How many of them talk about the non-availability of proper opportunities for disable?
They all are busy covering the celebrities and politicians and nobody is interested in the issues of pwd’s and we are the ones who are neglected the most in our country.
Don’t we deserve the same rights, same facilities, same opportunities as the so called normal people do?
Though government issues schemes for pwd’s but about how much of them we know and avail?
Here came the need of radio udaan..
There are nearly 13 million Blind / partially sighted peoples which means one out of 90 Indians is either blind or partially sighted.
we started this radio station as the main stream media used to ignore issues related to visually impaired people and nothing was used to be done in order to spread awareness, help us to fight for our rights, make us available the opportunities which are said to be available according to the government, and no one was there with us to fight for our rights. we didn't knew what all opportunities were available and how to avail the benefits provided by the government. no media was interested in covering the hurdles and obstacles we were facing in our day to day life and the issues pertaining to disables were not at all covered with the enthusiasm required.
all this needed to be changed so someone had to come up and we thought of starting our own radio station in order to serve our community with the information, skills, awareness, entertainment and raise the issues which were otherwise ignored by the society. we wanted the society to know what we were facing and what we deserved. we wanted everyone to know that we are capable of doing many things provided the society accept us.
So we were the first ever radio station for and by visually impaired people but designed to entertain masses.
The journey of Radio Udaan started in February 2014. It works under Udaan welfare society, Telangana, Registration No: 310.
Our main motive is to...
-to bring persons with disabilities on one platform so that they can bring their views, opinions and talents to light.
-create experiences that engage, delight, educate and inform in a respectful and humanizing way...
-massage our listeners valuable knowledge into a steady stream of content that makes them rise above the competition.
-turn our representative's expertise into effective content so as to make more and more people get benefit out of it.
-spread awareness about the issues going on inside and outside the community.
-make sure that everyone gets full benefit out of the government schemes and job opportunities available.
-make sure that our voice regarding any particular issue reaches the higher authorities.
We build those paths with optimized blog posts, landing pages, site pages, social posts, emails and more. Every lead is nurtured with personalized content.
ABOUT RADIO UDAAN:
Radio Udaan caters a variety of shows for its listeners. These shows range from entertainment to learning; current affairs to debates and music to inspiration. All the RJs of this station are visually challenged and belong to different corners of India.
Radio Udaan is being listened in more than 115 countries and its monthly listener statistics shuttle between 15,000 to 20,000 listeners. Through this platform, we create awareness among people about the policies of government, the rights, latest schemes, Accessible India and every such deed that comes to our notice. Whether it is Diwali, Eid, Rakshabandhan, Independence Day, live Olympics commentary, Cricket Commentary, elections or anything, we do live transmission for our listeners.
Important Factors
- We have been Enlightening people and polishing their skills through our educational shows.
- Making people aware about the latest government schemes and campaigns such as Accessible India, Su gamyaPustakalaya etc.
- In our talk shows, we bring government and non-government personalities who have been working in this area. to name a few, we have talked to:
- Dr. Kamlesh Kumar Pandey- He is the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD)
- Shri Await Kumar Awasthi- He is the Joint Secretary of Department of Empowerment of People with Disabilities
- Mr. Mukesh Jain- He is the Joint Secretary of Ministry of Social Justice
- Mr. Jawahar Lal Kaul(padamshri holder),-He is a blind Indian social worker and founder of the All India Conference of the Blind, AICB. N
- Blind Athlete AnkurDhama: He is ,one of India’s Leading Medal Hopes at the Rio Paralympics
- Dilip Joshi- He is a comedy Actor (Tarak Mehta Ka UltaChashma)
- Neetu Chandra - She is a producer and an actress (Once Upon A Time in Bihar)
- Nitin Chandra- He is a director (Once upon a time in Bihar)
- Abhimanyu Singh- He is an Actor (Global Baba)
- SandeepaDhar- She is an Actress (Global Baba)
- Jayshree Bhargava- He is a creative director (A Daughter's Dream)
- Prithvi- A social Worker. ( Related to Dolly Bindra Case)
- Prem chopra ( famous film star)
- Kiran bedi ji
- We have conducted three National Conventions-
- First Convention held in New Delhi on 2nd February 2015
- ,Second Convention held in Ludhiana on 30th January 2016
- Third convention held in Hyderabad on 28th January 2017
- The Entire expenses of Radio Udaan are borne by the Radio Udaan Team as it is a voluntary endeavor.
- For the convenience of people, we are available through telephone, E mail, Twitter, website, Social Media, YouTube, mailing list, Skype, Blog, Android and IOS applications as well.
- Radio Udaan has received an extensive coverage from media throughout this enriching journey.
Seminars and Workshops: for better interaction, the members of Udaan Welfare Society have travelled to various Educational institutes, colleges and schools to interact with the students, teachers, parents and other stake holders on inclusion, disability related awarenss, importance of education for nation building and so on.
Plays and Dramas: expressing information through arts is another version of better interaction. To build better relationship with the visually impaired and sighted, Udaan Welfare Society has directed Plays and Dramas throughout the year in different areas in order to build a better environment for the Visually Impaired with the sighted.
Udaan Matrimony: the year 2016 has been an outstanding year for Udaan Welfare Society as we’ve successfully provided an opportunity to the aspiring souls for marital life through “Udaan Matrimony” programme. In 2016 alone, we’ve arranged 4 marriages and thus lit the lives of 8 individuals.
Awards and Achievements: because of the aforesaid initiatives, some of our members have been recognized with awards. One of our RJs RJ Divya Sharma has been conferred Punjab state award, our general secretary cum RJ Mr. Danish Mahajan and RJ Divya Sharma jointly received Universal Design award 2016 conferred by NCPEDP, Our President cum Director Mrs. Minal Singhvi received Neelum Kurshed Kanga Award conferred National Association for the Blind (NAB) and our programme manager Ms. Jyoti Malik has been conferred National Award.
Why You Should Help Us?
Since more than3 years, we have been working dedicatedly towards our community. Throughout our journey, we upsurge all important events and policies. Now, as Radio Udaan has widened its wings beyond expectations, we seek your humble assistance. We believe that your contribution can make a difference in the lives of persons with disabilities. With your monetary assistance, we will be able to provide a much better and superior platform to our listeners. As said before, all the expenses of our day today work, servers, radio license, conventions etc. go from our pocket.
Coming Soon Projects
- We are planning to carry out sensitizing plays in main stream schools. Through these, we will create awareness related to disability. For these plays, we would require projectors so that we can demonstrate the plays in the best possible way.
- We are also planning to do Udaan Idol Contest. This way, we will acknowledge the singing talents of our community. The purpose is to uplift the talents of people with disabilities.
- We will carry out udaan awareness campaigns in villages and remote areas to link with disabled people living there.
- We belief that it is very important to change the mindset of people for person with disability there for in udaan awareness campaign we will travel in
- the rural and village area and will go to door to door and shop to shop for educating people with regard to disability.
- In this campaign our target to reach out to 10 million people across the India.
Since we are the only radio station for visually impaired, your help can fill the life of many people with new hopes and new opportunities.
As radio udaan is an ongoing project we go through many day to day expenses like
-internet connection :as it is an online radio station all our rj’s pays heavily monthly for internet connection.
-hard ware maintenance like the maintenance of lap tops, mikes, headphones etc.
-expenses for covering the various programmes going on related to disability. Travelling expenses and expenses for staying if it is in other state or town.
- phone charges for making calls for fixing the interview dates with the famous personalities in the disability sector and in order to stay connected with our listeners.
-for visiting various schools and areas for spreading awareness
As no project can be run without money and because of lack of proper funds we have to compromise the quality of our shows some times.
If we estimate we air 4 shows daily from 7pm to 11 pm and the next day we rebroadcast those shows.
Each show cost us approximately rs.5000 excluding the hard ware devices like laptops and mikes. It just includes the maintenance of these equipment’s and the phone and internet charges.
That makes out the monthly expenditure to be around rest. 5 lakhs.
One can easily understand that working without money is not possible for long as everyone needs money to sustain their family and basic standard of living.
As it is a full time job it becomes very difficult to work for money and for society at the same time but at different places.
There is no shortage of talent but sometimes we have to suppress our talent and our preferences in order to serve our family.
So if we will be able to make that possible we can take this project to higher levels.
We can establish our own offline radio station and will be able to employ many visually impaired persons who have the calibre but don’t get the opportunity to show their talent because of non-acceptance.
We plan to start our udan awareness campaign by march this year.
For carrying forward our udaan awareness campaign we need at least rs. 30,000 per month.
And as for now we are planning to carry this project for one year so will need roughly 3.5lakhs for this project.
How you can contribute…
There is a famous saying that where there is a will, there is a way…
So if you really want to contribute towards society, if you really want to spread equality and awareness, if you really feel that radio udaan is a unique project and working towards the betterment of society. You can start from here…
Just a step forward of yours can make difference in life of many …
- You can listen to us and boost our morale.
- - if you find any of our show entertaining, informative or creative, you can sponsor that show and can make the difference in that particular rj and boost the morale of others to do better.
- -you can bear the expenses of equipment’s like, head phones, mikes, recording devices and help us to make the quality of our shows better.
- - You can donate computers so that those who have the talent but not the sufficient resources can also come forward.
- - You can contribute for our Udaan Welfare Campaign so that we can achieve our mission of awareness hassle-free.
As far as the funds are concerned, we make sure that we are a transparent organization and every penny we get will be used for the betterment of society and the detail could be found on our web site.
www.radioudaan.com
As the projects mentioned above cannot be done without enough money so we will spend the money in achieving our goals which we have seen and unable to accomplish from long.
CONCLUSION:
An appropriate query, which may arise, is why any institution, individual or corporate should fund a project like Radio Udaan, the answer is simple and it straight appeals to the heart. The beneficiaries of radio udaan come from the severely discounted segment of society, which deserves support. Our modest request to the community at large is say yes for a cause now.
For any information, you can contact –
mail@radioudaan.com
radioudaan@gmail.com
We anticipate a positive response from you.
Best Regards
Radio Udaan Team
Website- www.radioudaan.com
Blog: www.radioudaan.blogspot.com
Email id: radioudaan@gmail.com
