Global broadcast

We were honoured to welcome John Coster, founder of Documentary Media Center, based in Leicester, UK to our projects in India. John’s visit was planned to help celebrate our radio station's 15th anniversary and document our work to help promote our UK charity and Snehalaya in the UK through his many media connections.

We already have an established relationship with John after he played a key role in helping us celebrate and promote Snehalaya UK’s 10^th birthday in Leicester, UK in 2024. He was again on hand to help host our Indian team’s visit to the UK in July 2025. It was time we returned the favour!

John is an independent journalist promoting documentary media - film, photography, audio and new media - as a vehicle for the sustainable development of community communication practices via the Documentary Media Centre, an independent museum, archive and library. He also maintains networks and links with independent journalists and documentary makers around the world via his Parallel Lives programme. Through him, Snehalaya is now linked with social action groups globally who seek to make their inclusivity approaches more responsive to the needs of people from many different communities.

John’s collaboration with Snehalaya over the past few years has seen him hosting events and interviewing senior Snehalaya staff to help promote our work in the UK. His visit to our Indian projects included consulting with our Radio Nagar team with a view to delivering an ongoing India-UK collaboration to further develop community participation in our programming.

The highlight of John’s visit was the celebration of Radio Nagar’s 15^th birthday. On day one he visited the radio team to discuss the planning which included a workshop by John. Invitees included former RJs, our radio team and other broadcasting professionals, students from New Arts College, our own radio interns from our Rehab Center and staff from our projects interested to develop their skills. In an interactive session, John shared his own experiences and tips on creating meaningful content while engaging with the communities we serve, which was enthusiastically received by delegates. This was followed by an official celebration of our anniversary and book launches where John was Guest of Honour.

Having taught for six years as an industry practitioner at Leicester’s De Montfort University on the communication arts and media production courses, he was keen to engage with our city’s students. We arranged a meet with mass communication students from Ahiliyanagar's New Arts Commerce and Science College and were impressed with how engaged they were, particularly in video production. Our discussions included how they could help with promoting Snehalaya while enhancing their portfolios and we were impressed when a team of students visited John at our Rehab Center to discuss more about their current and future projects. John played a key role in gathering their support which we hope to follow up soon with the full batch visiting our projects to explore this opportunity more.

John is very committed to giving people a voice in community radio and with that at the fore we arranged session with some of our own students and staff. The first was with the 8 and 9 Std students of our Snehalaya English Medium School. A two-hour workshop saw John engaging with our young people to workshop how they could take the lead in creating a radio station for our own school. Our bright students showed great passion in sharing their ideas for content and we are continuing to work with them to broadcast their first ever show on 13 February, World Radio Day. Our hope is that this continues to be incorporated in the school’s curriculum to create more content for our Radio Nagar while developing the children’s skills in planning, scheduling, writing and presenting with a long-term view of creating the future generation of RJs.

Our second session was with the staff of our Balbhavan slum centers and the women of Mukundnagar, a largely Muslim slum. John was surprised and impressed with how eager the women were to share their voices with confidence, clarity and passion, narrating a wealth of stories and experiences that can now be broadcast via their community radio station.

John’s final session was with our project coordinators. These are the on-the-frontline staff that have daily stories of the amazing work they all do to support the vulnerable and exploited women and children we serve. Unfortunately, they do not always know how to share these stories with our wider audiences. John shared the importance of social media and Snehalaya’s website for reaching our 20,000+ followers and archiving their achievements. The session ended with practical steps to ensure that their stories are shared more effectively in real time.

Along with interviews of inspiring staff and beneficiaries, John was also able to document a visit by 20+ Leeds Beckett University, UK and ISMS, Pune students. The team was here to conduct activities with our women and children and John was able to interview them with a view to helping future volunteers what to expect, particularly a group of Leicester High School for Girls who are planning to visit in July.

In between all of this John also has discussions with the organisers of our Balbhavana Super 40 and Youth Camps, offering his support to deliver vocational skills and training to participating youngsters.

John’s visit concluded with a visit to our Kinhavli project near Mumbai where we are developing a native forest and basketball training camp. Wherever he went John had camera and video and sound recorders at the ready to capture the essence of Snehalaya and we can’t wait to see and hear the results…

We are excited that this is John’s first visit with plans to revisit again soon while he also continues to offer support to our Snehalaya UK team to help build our presence among the South Asian communities in Leicester and beyond.