Health Secretary, K N Desiraju along with WHO Representative to India, Dr Nata Menabde recently launched a unique health awareness initiative – Donate Your Caller Tune For a Cause.
It is a pilot initiative for which prominent celebrities have lent their voice to create simple effective health messages. A symbolic ‘donation’ is made when people give up their regular caller tunes, replacing them with any one of these health awareness messages or subscribe to ‘Donate your caller tune’. The donation, therefore, is not asking a user for funds, but simply that s/he changes/donates a caller tune with a health related message.
One can easily download the message of a favourite celebrity and use it as a caller tune on one’s own mobile handset. Instead of a conventional dial tone or popular music track, a person who calls, hears a prominent celebrity’s voice exhorting him or her to make one small lifestyle change to live a healthy and happy life.
Speaking at the launch, Desiraju said, “We are facing a growing burden of noncommunicable diseases, a large proportion of which are preventable to a large extent through modifying behavioural risk factors like unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, consumption of tobacco products and alcohol etc. It is important that we explore innovative mediums such as caller tunes to create awareness of such issues.”
“As you are aware, the government launched the National Programme for prevention and control of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and stroke (NPCDCS) in 2010 with the objective of preventing and controlling NCDs. Presently the programme is being implemented in 100 districts spread over 21 states. It shall be upscaled in a phased manner to be implemented nation–wide by the end of the 12th Five Year Plan,” he added.
Explaining the rationale of the ‘Donate Your Caller Tune For a Cause’, WHO Representative to India, Dr Nata Menabde, said, “The idea is to reach out with creative messages for adopting healthy lifestyles. According to industry estimates, on an average a person receives around 15 phone calls a day, making the space of caller tune an untapped area for promoting health causes.”
“Also celebrities have proven to be good ambassadors for various causes; hence their involvement adds a lot of value to the campaign. I would like to thank each one of them for their contribution,” she added.
The health awareness caller tune messages are available on the website (www.donateyourcallertune.in). One can download, after choosing a cause and a celebrity and then enter one’s mobile number and submit. Alternatively, the tune can also be obtained by using one’s mobile handset to scan specially designed QR codes embedded in celebrity images.
The celebrities and the causes they have supported are: Amitabh Bachchan (High Blood Pressure), Jaya Bachchan (Breast and Cervical cancer), Akshay Kumar (Unhealthy food), Ranveer Singh (Fitness), R Madhavan (Diabetes), John Abraham (Obesity), Shankar Mahadevan (Stroke), Shaan (anti-tobacco), Cyrus Broacha (Stress) and Parineeti Chopra (Cardiovascular disease). Other celebrities will be joining the campaign in the next phase of the initiative. The Donate Your Caller Tune campaign is available pan India.
EH News Bureau
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