This past Friday, the three Programme Assistants of BCMD—Chewang Tobgay, Jigme Choden, and Manny Fassihi—inaugurated their partnership with Kuzoo FM through the launch of their radio programme on Media Literacy. The programme, tentatively titled “Charo2Charo”, will be airing every Friday at 6pm for the next five weeks. Ultimately, it aims to inform and engage the general public of Bhutan on a range of topics including media literacy, gangs in Bhutan, and gender stereotypes. Eventually, BCMD hopes to involve the contributions of youth participating in Media Clubs.

During Friday’s hour-long programme, Khinchho Tshering, one of Kuzoo’s English RJ’s, moderated a discussion with BCMD’s “three musketeers” on how BCMD has been engaging youth through Media Clubs and the Media Nomads workshops, the challenges Bhutan faces with the introduction and explosion of media, and the core concepts of media literacy with. The intent was to keep the content very broad, and to primarily communicate the importance of being media literate in an increasingly digital age

To keep the programme lighthearted, they also shared their experience of being ‘media victims’—naïve and wide-eyed consumers of media, whose passivity led them to be influenced to see the world in distorted ways. Jigme, for example, used to believe that by eating Special K cereal, she could lose weight simply because the advertisements claimed that it was possible. Indeed, advertisements are not entirely honest in the benefits they claim their products yield, and it was a lesson that didn’t take long for Jigme to learn!

For this Friday, the “three musketeers” will be discussing the challenges of parenting in a digital age. Today’s parent in Bhutan is one who sometimes feel overwhelmed in the ever-changing, ever-growing worlds of technology and media, and works to find a proper balance between keeping up and staying ahead of the kids. With all of this new technology, increased exposure to the media, how can parents make sure that their children are being exposed to appropriate content? Tune in this Friday to join in the conversation!