Salman Yousfzai

Rehana Gul and her three siblings were born blind. Ms Gul was working with the Pakhtunkhwa Radio Peshawar as radio jockey for past two years. She hosted a show ‘Mashaluna’ on the radio station, where Ms Gul invited people with disabilities from across the province.

“The program used to highlight the issues of special persons and also presented their painful stories for the general public,” she said.

However, Ms Gul had to part her ways with her career as RJ sometimes ago. “I was literally paid peanuts for hosting this show,” she said. On the other hand, she was offered pick and drop service initially, which was later withdrawn.

“It nearly become impossible for me to commute in public transport; therefore, I quit radio,” she said.

She said that initially it was difficult for her to write the program script in Pashto language as a host doing a show in the same language. However, gradually she learned to write Pashto.

Ms Gul who is a criminology student the University of Peshawar said that she was paid Rs 800 for hosting a show and Rs 3200 per month. “I used to give Rs 1200 to rickshaw driver while I used to receive my salary after three to four months,” she said.

In addition to this, she said that they also used to deduct taxes on this amount.

Flair for radio

Ms Rehana said that she loved to listening radio since childhood as being a visually impaired they can only listen to radio. “Since visually impaired people do most of the work by listening and she also in her spare time used to listen to radio,” she said.

She demanded the government to give her and other special persons permanent jobs to solve their economic problems in future.

Ms Gul said that having no eyesight was no was longer an obstacle for her and she also tried to pass this to her other listeners.

“They should be told that nothing is impossible in this world,” she said.

Ms Gul said that many parts of the province lack access to internet and majority of people in remote areas including women rely on radio for information.

She said that many women in Pakhtun society were not allowed to use mobile phones, so they listen to the radio most of the time. However, she said that if useful programs are broadcasted for these women through radio, they can learn a lot and build the society.

What are the opportunities for special people in Pakistani media?

Dr. Irfan Ashraf, a journalism faculty at the University of Peshawar, said it was unfortunate that not only Pakistani media but also government agencies have also no facilities for special people.

“Our thinking has been engineered in a way that is not ready to accept special people can play any positive role in society,” he said.

Dr Ashraf said that Ms Gul was a great example for people who want to work in journalism despite being visually impaired. However, he said that people like her to stop perusing their dreams due government failure to make their lives easy.

Besides, he said that even normal people face great problems in public transport, then one can imagine about the issues of the blind.  He said that even normal people were facing it difficult to do journalism, and then it was next to impossible for special persons to be in the media.

“Special persons have little or no representation in journalism,” Dr Ashraf said.

He said that absence of special persons in journalism deprives an entire group of having their voice in media. Dr Ashraf said that Ms Gul was representing special persons on her radio show and when she stopped doing that peoples like her lost their voice.

He said that it was the responsibility of the government to not only provide representation to special persons in all government institutions. He said that it was also government duty to provide special persons basic facilities so that they would not face any difficulty in carrying out their duties. Ms Gul did not consider disability her weakness and used to perform her duties as a radio RJ, but she did not get the facilities from the government enable to her work,” he added.

When was the first World Radio Day celebrated?

According to the UNESCO, Radio Day is celebrated on February 13. In this regard, UNESCO member states had proposed a resolution in 2011 to observe World Radio Day, which the UN General Assembly adopted in 2012 as International Day. Thus February 13 is observed as World Radio Day.