AHMEDNAGAR, NOVEMBER 3, 2009: October 31, 2009 saw Fr. Bento and Mr. Anil Wakde conduct a professional workshop for 58 students of Center for Social Research and Development (CSRD), the students in the Masters of Social work college attached to St. Anne’s Parish, Ahmednagar.
Expectations were narrated in groups. At the personal level, many aspired to be producers, directors, script writers, speakers, news-readers, journalists or simply, reporters. One group wanted to just be good & professional social workers. At the level of hobbies, they wished to create awareness in people of being victims of the media, and learn how to use serials, street plays and dramas to motivate and inspire people. One group wished to witness different things and acquire knowledge from it. Besides they expressed the desire to create a revolution in the quality of life of the people through communication media, and social action, education and social empowerment by the astute use of favorite mediums like SMS, email, mobile and the internet.
The workshop lasted for one day. It began at eight in the morning and concluded at three in the evening and covered a lot of themes, like history, development and impact of CR, creating street plays and getting people to work together in development of the target group. The group had many opportunities to express themselves. Anil Wakde and Bento D’Souza moved in seamlessly to create inputs that created confidence in the group’s innate capacity to communicate. The feedback spoke of the high standard of the program. Some of the results mentioned were as follows:
The things they liked: interesting program, new experience gained, knowledge about CR & execution of CR, creation of scriptwriting, designing of street plays, how to make presentations and celebrate by expressing yells.
The things they learnt: self confidence, how to face the group courageously, how to express one’s inner thoughts, the power of imagination and creativity, script writing, producing forceful presentations, awareness building, the importance of sharing, and the joy of team work.
Some suggestion that could improve the workshop was the extra participation of all, as some did not get involved a hundred percent.
All felt that more workshops should be offered to the students of a similar nature.
On a rating scale of 1 to 10, one group abstained but the other three rated the performance as 7, 8 and 9 out of 10. The event ended with a spontaneous prayer and vote of thanks by Ms. Jyotsna from Jharkhand.
All in all, the goal of planting the seed of ComRadio within an elite group of young social workers was achieved. Well begun half done. Another tiny spark was created in the minds and hearts of the young, to burn away the hopelessness of confronting the evils of a dark society. Let us all keep the flag of community radio flying high!!!