Archive: Media and Volunteering

Volunteers of Namma Dhwani (Our Voice), a community radio station in Budikote village of Karnataka, recently played an important role in ensuring free and fair local elections, besides working for greater degrees of transparency, accountability and community participation in the voting process.
From: UNESCO

Home Life is an international initiative designed to enable displaced young people to capture the struggle of their daily lives through photography. In 11 cities around the world, up to 20 streetkids took part in the workshops in which professional photographers volunteered to teach the basics of photography. By the spring of 2002, a file of 15000 photographs were amassed from 121 kids documenting 11 cities.
From: Home/Life

In South Africa the Sunday live breakfast show produced by SABC Religion includes a regular feature "Spirit in Action" which highlights the work of the Volunteers VIA Africa network whose founder director, Nadine Naidoo, is a presenter on the program which is approaching its 50th episode.
From: Volunteers VIA Africa

Four Indian students of journalism have come together to train 20 slum children in journalism. The result: Udayachal, the children’s own newspaper which highlights problems and concerns of their community. The children belong to Madangir and Khanpur slums in South Delhi. Vedabhyas Kundu reports.

Encouraging media-persons to volunteer on various social and humanitarian causes is an important component in volunteer efforts. There are many difficult lessons to be learned by both journalists and activists. K Kannan of The Hindu volunteers his personal experience.

Media is a powerful tool for stimulating volunteer activities in any of its varied forms, from traditional mass media to alternative and new media. Worldwide, experience suggests that innovative and judicious use of these media have enhanced both the image and the spirit of volunteering.

A study on Media and Volunteering in India concluded that media has a balancing role to play between that of a watchdog and an activist. While most participants agreed that media can be crucial in giving a fillip to volunteer action, diverse and conflicting views emerged when it comes to the actual nature of facilitating such work.

In this Video Volunteers programme, volunteer filmmakers join voluntary organizations for two months to write, shoot and edit one short film for the organization. They also train the staff of the organization to make their own small videos and to use them to give a voice to the poor.
From: Creative Visions

A day or week dedicated to volunteering provides a hook for media promotion. This example of the annual "Volunteering Week" in the UK attracts scheduling from the innovative Community TV channel.
From: Volunteering England