South Asian Good News Channel

 Have you notice there is something in common among headlines from leading newspapers of our country?  That is the negativity. The mainstream media is somehow focused more on the negative news and goes the extra mile to spread them. They must be having their reasons for doing so. The 'Good News' or the positive news somehow gets buried in the corners of the unimportant pages. In such a scenario all that is available to the general public is the negative news. Being the most intelligent of species, the humans discuss these negative news items be it during a coffee break at work, or at the college canteens. They even go to the extent of sharing it on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+. This creates a vicious cycle where we humans, subconsciously breathe in the negativity and participate in spreading such negative news. Being aware of the negative happenings around is one thing and propagating them is another. 

When being constantly bombarded by the media with negative news, we tend to create an image about things that makes us lose objectivity. We tend to give less priority to the negative news when we encounter it on a daily basis. Therefore, issues such as corruption, harassment, malnutrition etc. all seem to take less importance in our daily lives.

Has it ever occurred to you that we are not told of the good side of things occurring? We are not told of a politician who is truly working towards making the life of his people better. We do not come across news of how a Buddhist priest is coaching the volleyball team of this school after seeing the enthusiasm of the students and due to the lack of teachers and coaches in a rural village in Sri Lanka. We do not hear of the Navy transporting school children to school during the heavy rains. All these positive news get submerged in the mountain of negative news that flow to us via different news channels. This is simply because 'bad news' sells!

Clearly, this causes for a need for a source of Good News where good deeds happening around us are highlighted. This would act as positive stimulus to our brains to think about solutions, or to simply be inspired. It would make us believe that life is not all that bad and that there is hope. That there are indeed good people around us and good things do really happen. The South Asian Good News Channel is a small step towards spreading positive news.

I am sure you are thinking as to why this news channel focuses only on South Asia? The seed of this idea - South Asian Good News Channel - was sown at the SAYC 2011 where delegates from the SAARC nations got together to discuss real burning issues. We found that our nations and people had so much in common. It was not only the history and culture - but the tastes, the likes and dislikes, our behavior, our take on issues was also very similar. At the end of the Conference, if was difficult to identify a Pakistani from an Indian and an Indian from a Sri Lankan. If such harmony exists at people level then this definitely needs to get highlighted. Pakistan is not India's enemy nor is Afghanistan Pakistan's. The media, to a certain extent, is over-emphasizing the conflicts and under-emphasizing the people-to-people harmony. The South Asian Good News Channel is our way of helping to highlight not only good things happening around us but also happening across the borders to foster regional peace among the South Asian nations.

At the end of the day when you are tired after a long day at work or frustrated by your irrational boss's unreasonable expectations - you can tune into the South Asian Good News Channel for your dose of inspiration or simply a drop of hope.

To get the Good News from South Asia - subscribe to the Facebook page -http://www.facebook.com/SAGNChannel or the twitter handle http://www.facebook.com/SAGNChannel

Reactions to the Reach Out Project

Several months back, I was asked by a few friends to come be a part of a network of young girls (and then some guys joined too!) who were working towards creating a safer space for women in Sri Lanka. Their initial work started in Colombo. 

As part of 'reaching out' to society, the Reach Out bunch decided on using types of theater; and disruptive theater was singled out as one of the means to address this issue. We decided on having sessions of disruptive theater in the random bus on different bus routes, so that we spread the word to a variety of people commuting in public buses. 

We also decided, disruptive theater in buses alone won't help. Public spaces where youth and women visit and spend time at were deemed equally important. This is where I was  came into volunteer and be a subject of a scripted 'perversion'. 

The actors were to go to Majestic City (MC) and act out a scene of guys perving and annoying a lone girl walking and window shopping. Two friends were to follow and randomly cat-call. Their basic motive was to be that of a normal pervert and annoy me. The experience was baffling, especially when I went up to people to ask for their help! Most of them just turned and walked away, leaving the victim (me) in distress! Alternatively, when I approached a lone guy whom I was randomly passing to help me, he actually stopped to help. He didn't say a single word, but he made sure to stand by till the two 'stalkers' went. I thanked him, because I did not expect him to help me as none of the others did so when previously approached. 

I suppose I can easily say that I am generally a 'perv-magnet'. I attract all the wrong attention and get perved on quite often, be it touching, squeezing, rubbing on etc. on a normal day-to-day basis. So for me to actually go to a public space and act out reality had be on my nerves with something bordering on paranoia! I was skeptic and I was practically refusing to go up to strangers to ask for help. But the two other 'support' friends that were there, insisted that it needs to be done, at least for the project's sake. From this 'experiment' I realised my basic notion of other people not wanting to meddle in another's worries was correct. Then again I also came to realise, that not everyone is like that, and there is the odd person in society who will go out of his way to help someone in distress. 

Thanks to this lovely project, my perceptions on people changed a bit and kudos to Shifani and Rushda for giving me this opportunity and to Himal and Naveen the two professional perverts! 

You can access the Reach Out blog for more information on the project and also on the Beyond Borders site.