‘Soul City’ touches women’s lives with popular Indian TV series
PRODUCERS of an Indian edutainment show with a cumulative viewership of 400 million, making it one of the most watched TV shows in the world, have attributed their success to South African drama series Soul City.
With an overwhelming response from the audience, the show Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (I, a woman, can achieve anything) is in its third season, now focusing on sanitation and hygiene along with family planning, women empowerment, female infanticide, sexual and reproductive health of youth, which is rare content on Indian TV.
“Women in India are faced with patriarchal social norms that dominate every aspect of their lives. There is not just a preference for sons, rather in some parts of the country, there is an aversion for daughters.
“The title of our programme Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (I, A Woman, Can Achieve Anything) conveys the essence of the series, which gives women the confidence that they can lead change in their lives,” said producer Poonam Muttreja. She is the executive director of a Delhi-based NGO Population Foundation of India (PFI), which promotes and advocates for the effective formulation and implementation of gender-sensitive population, health and development strategies and policies.
In an interview with the Cape Times, Muttreja said Soul City was their inspiration.
“We found that the series was a pioneer in South African edutainment, which was on air for over 20 years… it addressed community norms around domestic violence through a creative marker in the series where community members participated in collective pot-banging to raise the alarm against an abuser.
“As we looked for global evidence on entertainment education, Soul City became a reference point for us. The learnings from Soul City helped in designing, production and evaluation of Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon,” she said.
Muttreja said they were introduced to the Soul City project by Professor Arvind Singhal, a global expert on entertainment-education programmes. “He was an adviser and evaluator and played a big role in the success of Soul City, and he connected us with the project.
“We invited Shereen Usdin, who was a founding member of the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication, now the Soul City Institute of Social Justice, to India. She was part of the formative journey of Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon, and shared the experiences and learnings from Soul City.
“It was a challenge for us to reach the most marginalised communities, who usually have very limited access to media. The first 26 episodes focused on good hygiene and sanitation practices…
“The remaining 26 episodes of this season will focus on sexual and reproductive health for young people… I expect that we will be able to empower women and men to challenge regressive social norms,” Muttreja said. |