Category: What We Offer

Studies have shown that almost 80% of the Indian population is offline for most practical purposes; and a big percentage of this group does not have access to mainstream media channels either (like newspapers, radio, and television). Given this, at Gram Vaani, we believe in using appropriate technology and people driven processes to build participatory media networks that can empower communities. Our Theory of Change has organically evolved from the ground up and is based on our experience of working in the rural Information, Communication and Technology space over the last few years.
The following figure depicts how Mobile Vaani leads to –

• improved awareness about rights and entitlements,
• demand for services (individual/family/collective demand), and subsequently
• improvement in the self and collective action
• better accountability of various stakeholders

Our Theory of Change reflects how we build and strengthen social accountability of stakeholders and ensure transparency in the governance processes. For instance, government institutions in India offer multiple social security entitlements to rural and urban low-income communities such as the Public Distribution System, National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), Direct Benefit Transfer-linked schemes including PM-KISAN, Jan Dhan, MGNREGA, BOCW, and Provident Fund. Yet, there has been extensive documentation of exclusion of deserving people from availing these social protection measures. These excluded individuals are often encouraged to record their grievances on Mobile Vaani. The Gram Vaani team then ensures that these grievances are handled by a network of community volunteers, who interact with concerned government or panchayat officials or provide online assistance to the people to help solve their problems.

Mobile Vaani platforms can reach ‘media dark’ areas and help in bridging the gap left by communication that relies on mass media. The IVR system engages listeners in real time and can be used as an indicator to understand changes in mindset brought about by the programmes.
As a community media platform, Mobile Vaani heavily emphasizes on creating and featuring new and engaging content to retain its users so that they feel motivated to access the platform on a regular basis. Content is created in the studio by our content team, or is user-generated, reactions, feedback, and experiences shared by users who listen to our published content on the Mobile Vaani platforms. There is a mix of contextual content that is local and relatable, and complete content – with an attempt to get a 360-degree view of a particular issue, from community members to officials, for instance. This mix effectively helps us reach out to diverse communities with information, opinions and perspectives on issues that matter to them.

The social entrepreneurial private sector is an increasingly strong player in addressing India’s inequalities in health, livelihoods, finance, agriculture, education, and more. Similarly, there are many private entities who are innovating and developing relevant consumer products to suit the local conditions in rural regions. Given this there is a strong need to understand rural India better – their understanding of issues, their demands, needs, and aspirations. In addition, it has also become critical to test and discover the community’s willingness to buy various products and services before they are rolled out in full-fledged manner.

Given the context, the federated network of participatory community media – Mobile Vaani – has become an effective mean to reach out to the desired target communities. Gram Vaani has established dedicated MV instances in 25+ districts in 5 Hindi and Tamil speaking states. It has also developed the network of volunteers and citizen journalists in these locations, who contribute and maintain diversity on the platform. To date, over 3 million unique callers have dialed in to use the virtual platform and benefit from the easy and timely access to information. Around 80k to 1 lakh users call the MV platform each month. Frequent surveys reveal that MV’s userbase comprises around 70% individuals within the age group of 25-35 years and around 60% of them are involved in agricultural activities.

Gram Vaani can leverage this MV platform and help social enterprises and consumer-centred companies to run dedicated campaigns; publicize products/services in remote rural areas in innovative ways; and gather relevant data using the MV platforms. This can give you market research insights, and help generate leads for your products and offerings.
Gram Vaani’s platforms and technologies make this possible by collecting user information to understand consumption patterns, savings and credit opportunities available to people, quality of healthcare facilities, and identify enterprising youth who can serve as distribution agents, and more.

Our platforms also allow organisations to reach out to remote areas using our app and phone technologies, to engage with the listeners through participatory feedback on campaigns, hold discussions, and to make announcements. We provider partner organisations with detailed analytics on outreach achieved to different demography, locations, and research on community response.