When Saritha, a resident of Bangalore, moved to Prithvirajnagar, a small hamlet near Uchadungi Post at Uttarakhand on June 1, she went there with dreams to set up a community radio station. But now, she, like many others, is stranded due to flash floods and hoping that the situation would improve in the next few days.
Saritha Thomas, a resident of Cox Town, had recently relocated to Prithvirajnagar. She had worked in various radio stations including BBC World Service Radio.
“I want to set up community radio stations at remote villages in India where villagers can get to hear programmes in their own language. That’s when, People’s P.OW.E.R (Participatory OWnership Empowerment Radio) was born.” The station is yet to go on air.
They chose the first project at Prithvirajnagar, which around 70 km from Kedarnath.
Sarita said, “For the past four days, we are living without power, water, signal and no internet connection. We were literally stranded. But things seemed to be better since Wednesday night.
We were able to get power and thus charge our phones.”
“We have come here to set up community radio station which can reach some 15 km radius. I am here to train villagers to run it on their own. We will not step back. We are just hoping that situation will improve and we will meet our target,” Sarita said.