“Coming from that family, and becoming a journalist today– it’s like a dream”, she adds. She has produced a number of news stories depicting the miseries of the people of her community and has been able to draw the attention of her community, local administration and law enforcers.
Like Shahrina, many female journalists in different community media are struggling to make a change in the male-dominated rural areas. But very often, they are interrupted by the encirclements. “Some girls joined our radio without informing their parents. But when their parents come to know about it, they take them back”, says Parvin Nahar, station manager of Radio Jhenuk, Jhenaidah.
Apart from these, there are bigger problems in the working areas. Sometimes they need to go a long way on foot for collecting information, sometimes people don’t want to talk to them about sensitive issues, and give wrong information, as they are not aware of their rights. The local administration makes them wait for days for data collection, many a times they don’t provide the data at all.
“When I went to cover a report on family planning issues, people of my community didn’t even want to talk to me. For them, it’s a very private issue to talk about”, says Baishakhy Khatun, presently working as a programme host at Bangladesh Betar (started her career at Radio Jhenuk, under the fellowship of BNNRC). “But later on, that programme got the family planning media award from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare”. Apart from these, Baishakhy received a number of national and international awards for her outstanding achievements for Radio Jhenuk.
Conquering all obstacles, rural women journalists are now creating a platform for people of different communities, by picking up the stories of success and sorrow. They demand an indiscriminate environment for performing their duties properly and yearn to move a long way in future with the help of the initiators.
This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh