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Tag: Radharani Mitra

  • The unprecedented drama – mainstreaming the issue of Faecal Sludge Management (FSM) in India – launches on YouTube (Channel Navrangi) today

    BBC Media Action’s Navrangi returns in second series

    By Our Staff

     

    BBC Media Action is launching Life Navrangi – a seven-episode web dramedy on faecal sludge management (FSM) on YouTube. Life Navrangi is the second season in the Navrangi series, a follow up to the 26-episode television drama ‘Navrangi Re!’ (Nine to a Shade), that was broadcast by Viacom18 on three of its channels and OTT platforms in 2019. Both series have been supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

     

    Said Archna Vyas, Deputy Director, Policy Advocacy Communications, and Behavioural Insights, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation India: “Faecal Sludge Management and its impact on one’s health and environment features very low in people’s awareness and hence consideration, so there exists limited demand for emptying/desludging services and limited responsibility to build appropriate containment systems at a household level. Through Life Navrangi, our ultimate goal is to drive action towards safe sanitation behaviours, using the power of storytelling through edutainment, and leveraging the reach and targeting of digital media. At the Gates Foundation, we have been committed to supporting India in its journey towards safe and sustainable sanitation, and we are excited about this partnership with BBC Media Action to shape consumer demand and deliver social impact towards a healthier future.

     

    Added Radharani Mitra, Global Creative Advisor, BBC Media Action: “We realised we needed to capitalize on the power of storytelling to enhance message delivery when it came to FSM.  It is a result of our continued effort to make the invisible, visible and increase the risk perception around the issue of faecal sludge management (FSM) and contamination of water. The series reflects small town India’s conservative values, dreams of wealth and success – limitations notwithstanding, and a determination to live on their own terms. The plot points in the story are about owning one’s dream home, making a mark in one’s profession, the true meaning of ‘being smart’, dealing with debt and a marriage threatening to fall apart. Our narrative breaks gender stereotypes and includes characters from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Correct FSM services become a metaphor for a more organised way of living, managing resources and relationships, and achieving one’s goals.”

     

  • The social impact show Navrangi Re! will be Rishtey’s first original production

    Viacom18, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and BBC Media unveil ‘Navrangi Re!’

    By A Correspondent

     

    Viacom18 has partnered with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and BBC Media Action to create a general entertainment fiction series with an underlying behaviour change message on sanitation.

     

    The 26-episode finite series ‘Navrangi Re!’ will launch in January 2019 and will go on-air, bi-weekly, over 13 weeks, on the Rishtey channel as well as Colors Gujarati and Odia. The show will be the first original production on Rishtey and will also be available on Voot.

     

    Speaking about the show, Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO & MD, Viacom18 said: “We at Viacom18 believe in the power of partnerships to effect impact at scale. With ‘Navrangi Re!’, we are creating a platform that aptly uses the medium of entertainment to bring in mass behaviour change.” Explaining Viacom18’s partnership with the project, he added: “Sanitation has been a cause that we are closely associated with, whether through our sustainability project ‘Chakachak Mumbai’ or our film ‘Toilet: Ek Prem Katha’. We hope to engage our audiences with powerful storytelling and intend to bring forth the importance of faecal sludge management to keep Bharat Swachh.”

     

    Added Madhu Krishna, India Country Lead, WSH, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:  “We are very excited about working with Viacom18 and BBC Media Action on ‘Navrangi Re!’. In our mission to inspire people to take action to change the world, we partner with government, non-profits, academic institutions, and private sector. However, this is the first time that Gates Foundation has partnered with a satellite television network in India. ‘Navrangi Re!’ is an innovative approach to engage TV viewing audiences, digital citizens and social media users on sanitation issues.”

     

    Said Radharani Mitra, Global Creative Advisor, BBC Media Action: “BBC Media Action has created narrative-based interventions across the world, in partnership with public and private sector media networks that deliver a message but still entertain, and bring back viewers week after week. That’s where the power of storytelling and compelling content come in. This partnership takes ‘flush ke baad’ (after flushing) into the space of mainstream media to reach TV viewing audiences.”