Our Story
Chambal Media
Chambal Media is a digital media social enterprise founded in 2015 by a diverse team of rural and urban media practitioners, with over 20 years of experience producing local language content especially with and for rural audiences. Chambal Media was founded with the mission to bring into the digital/internet revolution in India the perspectives and involvement of women on the margins.
Diversity is our neev, our foundation: besides producing media products, we train and mentor rural women as researchers and content creators in remote rural districts, most of whom become part of our revolutionary network of new media professionals for a new India.
We believe that understanding society from the perspective of those most marginalised can be empowering and transformative and is necessary for social change; and that hyperlocal content produced by communities is key to hold the largest democracies up to accountability.
With this vision, we enable and produce multimedia content on youth, gender, tech, culture, development, short feature documentaries and live debates on current issues for local, national and international audiences. We are interested in having the media product travel to the last mile, where engaging, accurate, relevant news and information, local and global, is rarely seen or heard. In order to bridge online and offline, highly engaged audiences, we use closed social media networks, as well as open platforms such as Youtube, and open-air community events. We also plan and execute customised digital media campaigns nationally.
Chambal Academy
In its 2 decade history, over 500 women have been trained offline in digital storytelling by Chambal Media and Khabar Lahariya. Chambal Academy seeks to build on, amplify and accelerate this impact. Chambal Academy will train and equip rural women & girls to engage in the digital public and be storytellers and catalysts for change.
The first course launched was the - Online Rural Mobile Journalism Course. In the 6 month pilot of this course alone, 270 women from UP, MP and Bihar were trained. That’s a 20x increase in reach per year!
Our mission at Chambal Academy is to:
"To build an online learning space for rural women and girls; designed adapting to their social and geographic needs and experiences; to ensure that the voice and presence of these women and girls are a prominent part of India’s digital future."
We strongly believe that with the equal engagement of women & girls in the online public domain, we will see more equitable access to digital education, jobs online and a more inclusive and plural representation of women and those most marginalised in the media.
Khabar Lahariya
Khabar Lahariya is the country’s only women-run brand of ethical and independent rural news. Khabar Lahariya reaches up to 10 million people a month through multiple digital platforms. KL has a network of women reporters and stringers in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
This model of the local, embedded reporter reporting as an insider from the community itself, with the deepest and most nuanced understanding of hyper-local issues, is Khabar Lahariya’s singular edge. From establishing itself as a chain of local language newspapers, in the last three years, Khabar Lahariya is now entirely digital, and runs a video news service for media dark areas of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
