SSMK is a 45 minute weekly radio activity that targets adolescents and youth population, that was initiated in 2001 and later housed at DBI EA in 2004. Each week the young presenters of SSMK 'talk' to young people through this show with the aim of equipping them with the life skills to support them in making sound decisions on matters relating to their lives, empowering them to deal with their everyday problems and to tackle with peer-pressure and stigmatization. The goal of SSMK is to inform, educate and capacitate adolescents in the survival, protection, participation and development of the rights of children, adolescents and women for social change. The project operates with three principles: partnership, participation and decentralization. The project has partnered with over 300 community radio stations across Nepal to produce and broadcast radio programs for adolescents to date. Over 100 youth radio producers have been trained in life skills and radio techniques. SSMK maintains a strong presence in social media with almost 30,000 followers on Facebook. Efforts are on to expand user engagement on YouTube, Twitter and Instagram with an aim of increasing audience participation and to ensure that the content is relevant to adolescents across country. As part of the project’s efforts to effectively reach and impact its target population, it runs simultaneous programs in regional languages, produced and broadcast locally by community-based radios.

Each week SSMK receives over hundreds of responses from audience in the form of SMS, IVR, Facebook message, comments etc. Similarly, over 36,000 audience engage with SSMK every week. National Demographic Health Survey and other media surveys have confirmed that SSMK is the most popular programme among Nepalese youth. Currently 58% of existing radio stations broadcast SSMK in addition to the National Network. SSMK has touched lives of thousands of Nepalese adolescents, resulting a well-informed middle-aged Nepalese generation benefiting from its radio content.

http://www.ssmk.org

• Nepal (Republic of)

The format, theme, medium and life skill component of the project are replicable to any geographic and administrative location targeting youth and adolescent population. Youth and adolescent population across the globe go through the same physical and mental changes, peer pressure, emotions, temperament, career dilemmas and are need of some assistance during their transition from childhood to adolescence. The project and themes are also specifically relevant in the context of developing world where taboos related to LGBTIQ, gender inequality, female foeticide are prevalent. On the other hand, radio is an effective medium in terms of cost and reach.

SSMK was a pioneer in setting the agenda for adolescent issues when it was first conceived. However, with increased internet penetration, access to vital information about sexual and reproductive health and rights has improved. The project has also grown out to cover a diverse range of issues related to adolescents beyond just health, focusing on governance, rights, employment and career, education, love and relationships among others. It has also internalised the online tools to stay updated and reach out to its core target groups.

This project is sustainable. Towards sustaining the program, DBI EA have been initiating contact with social marketing companies and considering possibility of funding to sustain the program. DBI EA also encourages university students to carry out research based on SSMK and its impact through fellowship program. It helps in expanding brand of the program as well as in documenting the impact of the program. Through internship program DBI EA sustains and manages the knowledge through mutual academic and research endeavours.

DBI EA also builds capacity of local FM producers to produce local radio programs. Many local FM stations have already replicated the format and approach of SSMK in their own production. In this context, the training DBI EA provides is expected to build the capacity of local FM stations in order to produce the SSMK format based radio program even after the agreement is over. Similarly, SSMK has been going on air each week from around 100 FM stations, other than contracted ones, free of cost, given the importance of the issues SSMK has been raising and popularity of the program among youth and adolescent population.

In addition, SSMK has already been partnering with USAID in engaging youth and adolescent population through life skills component to their existing projects. This way DBI EA has putting its effort it sustaining the program.

DBI EA operates with the objectives of empowering people by increasing their access to information and to reach the unreached by providing critically needed information and knowledge through media, capacity building and community engagement for positive transformation. DBI EA aims to accomplish this goal by using the media, state of the art information and communication technology (ICT), effective partnerships and local community engagement. This major operating principle of DBI EA echos well with one of the key principles of WSIS declaration towards building an inclusive Information Society, that is "in order to ensure to that everyone can benefit from the opportunities that ICTs can offer, all stakeholders should come together to improve access to information and communication infrastructure and technologies as well as to information and knowledge and build capacity". In line with the major operating principle of DBI EA SSMK promotes the use of available ICT and internet based tools in order to engage with young and adolescent population across country by having 'participation' of listeners as a guiding principle. SSMK has been on the forefront of using ICT for audience engagement and monitoring and evaluation. Using tools like Interactive Voice Response and Short Messaging Service, SSMK has been able to provide vital information to target audience cost-free, increased two-way interactions to provide solutions and knowledge and receive real time feedback to enable evaluation of the program. This is how SSMK promotes WSIS values in our community.