Rajendra Bandhu made his mark as a freelance journalist. His identity is because of his village- to-village reporting. His reports found a prominent place in the mainstream media.
The journalism of Rajendra Bandhu was not limited to his own writings, but his effort was that young people in village-village write their issues and convey them to the media. In order to implement this idea Rajendra Bandhu has organized writing and communication skills workshops for youth at the grassroots level in Madhya Pradesh. Thousands of youth participated in these training workshops and acquired writing and communication skills.
The youth trained by him write their village and society issues and placed in the mainstream media. For the development of writing skills among rural youth, Rajendra Bandhu developed a simple, easy and engaging activity-based training module. The youth were trained according to this module. Many of the youth involved in his training became so deeply interested in writing and journalism that many of them received formal journalism education and today they are working as reporter and editor in many media institutions.
Initiative for Writing Skills Training of Rural Youth
In order to enable youth from rural areas to reach their issues and voices to the media directly, was established. Writer groups are formed through this by bringing together rural youth and social workers together. Communication workshops are organized at local levels in order to do this. Writers’ groups are established during the workshop and the topics for writing are decided for the members of the group. Thus, the members write an article or feature on the issues in their region after going back from the workshop. For studying the issues and events related to panchayats, National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme etc. the members of the community writers group travel to the concerned place as a group, prepare their reports and present it to the media.
As mentioned above, prior to the established of the Community Writers Group workshops are organised at cluster or block level on writing skills. The key elements of such workshops focus on the structure and source of writing in which the participants practice to write on their issues. A training module on writing skills is also prepared through which writing skills can be developed in youth from rural areas.
Apart from the members of Community Writers Group, workshops on writing skills were also organised for staff of the voluntary organisations and women Panchayat representatives. The role of a facilitator was played in workshops on writing skills organised by voluntary organisations in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Till now thousands youth have been trained on writing skills through these workshops. The participants of these workshops are now doing the job of writing on people’s issues in different newspapers.
Writings of Rajendra Bandhu
The aim of journalism is not only to reflect the social scenario, but also to bring about a change in the society. It becomes necessary to bring forth social issues, work for their advocacy and make efforts in the direction of social betterment. My journalism is about “the road less travelled” and I try to reach there, where neither any photographer nor any cameraman has approach! The politicians go there just to ask for votes, while the government officials avoid visiting such places. That is to say, I make an effort to express the problems of remote areas through my presence there.When most of the journalists prefer the capital city, organize meetings and gatherings on big issues, and are busy taking politicians’ interviews, I stay with the villagers and try to understand their life style, and work to bring forth their voice through media. For the past thirty five years, I have been constantly endeavouring to highlight people’s courage, struggle, success and challenges by reaching them from village to village and giving them place in the media.– Rajendra Bandhu