How one call changed a tribe?

February 19, 2016 Unknown Wizards Valli Sarvani No comments

Have you heard of the tribe called Pahari Korwa? It is found in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh. People here live in villages in hilly areas. Two pregnant women died here in two consecutive months because they couldn’t reach the hospital in time.

Someone in the tribe found out about CGNet Swara, a voice-based news portal which allows anyone to report and listen to stories on local issues. He called the number and recorded a message asking to tell their collector about the problems in the village.

The message he sent was received by someone in New Jersey on CGNet Swara website. The collector received a call and was surprised that someone from US was calling to tell him about a village he never heard of.

The collector went there and analyzed the situation. Now, a school is being constructed here and a road is being made all thanks to the phone call.

Shubhranshu Choudhary, the founder of CGNet Swara says that using technology can bring a lot of change in the world. He says that many problems can be solved with it. CGNet Swara is a platform which works on a very simple technology: an internet connection, a phone number, and an interactive voice response system (IVRS).

Any user can call the number – 8050068000 and he/she gets connected to the internet. In the IVRS, there are two options. One is to record a message and the other is to listen to the reports. After the message is recorded, a moderator team will receive the notification.

These moderators listen to the message and they check the facts. After thorough verification, they will publish the story if found suitable. Most of the reports are in Gondi language, the language of two million people of Gond tribe in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh etc.

The messages are translated to Hindi and English so that journalists, NGOs, etc can help resolve these issues.