North Bengal’s only Catholic run community radio broadcaster joins nine other non-government organisations in the Darjeeling Hills in a 15 week Wellbeing campaign to combat Covid-19.

 A group of ten Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in the hills have come together to fight COVID-19 with a 15-week Wellbeing Campaign. Their slogans include: ‘Bring Back the Smiles,’ and ‘We Build Each Other’.

Radio Salesian-The Voice of the Hills, the first and only community radio of the Hills established in 2016, is the radio partner for the campaign. The radio talk series is being aired every Saturday with a repeat broadcast on Wednesdays for 15 weeks.

The station broadcasts from a college run by the Salesians of Don Bosco.

The topics featured in the media campaign include education, music and the arts, social media, physical and mental wellbeing, legal rights, and urgently combating COVID through safety standards and vaccination.

The speakers are representatives from NGOs. They talk about  issues concerning people from all walks of life.

The campaign also uses social media channels and related linkages such as  campaign posts .

Volunteers in villages call up community members to check on them from time to time, tailoring their responses to their needs..

”Using the hashtags #Bringbackthesmiles #Webuildeachother, the Wellbeing Campaign provides information and support in these trying times,” said Adarsh Rai, Founder of Encompass and team member of Hayden Hall Darjeeling.

”We plan to do it from top-down directives to modelling everyday safety standards, from negativity to positive action language, from fear and doom to healing, wellbeing, hope and growth,” said Psychologist Susan Subba of Heart-Works.

Art Mile Kalimpong director Virgil Sequeira said, ”The multi-platform digital media campaign provides simple life coping strategies that can also impact the community beyond the scope of the pandemic.”

Binita from Hayden Hall added that the campaign would reach every household in the Hills through social media posts, tele-support, local news and community radio broadcast in Nepali.

These NGOs are in the process of contacting other non-profit and community-based groups and  media and opinion influencers to join the campaign and engage with social media posts.

The objective is to reach out to the community and start having conversations that build each other and bring back smiles.

The ten campaign partners are Hayden Hall Institute Darjeeling, Gandhi Ashram Kalimpong, DLR Prerna Darjeeling, Encompass Kalimpong, Art Mile Kalimpong, Heart-Works, Sumitra Yoga Shala, Vacay Workers, HIGLE, and DGC.

  Catholic Church, Covid Warriors, COVID-19, Darjeeling, Northeast, Radio Salesian