Unity 101 Community Radio’s 14th Anniversary Awards and Achievement Dinner

Southampton’s Unity 101 Community Radio is celebrating fourteen incredible years of broadcasting and serving the community.

Unity 101 is the south’s first and longest running Asian and ethnic community radio station. It has an estimated audience of 60,000 people across the city and broadcasts to thousands more online and on smartphone apps. The station is run by Ram Kalyan ‘Kelly’, who was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Solent University last year for his dedication to community media and providing opportunities for all.

This multi-award winning and multi-ethnic radio station truly puts the emphasis on ‘community’ in ‘community radio’. Their work extends from the radio studio, where it broadcasts 24/7, and onto the streets of Southampton.

Throughout 2019, Unity 101 put on a number of major events aimed at connecting communities, bringing people together, up skilling local people and improving the city’s environment. Here are just a few:

It acted on its commitment towards a cleaner, greener city through its My Journey to Employment project. This six-month project brought heads from Southampton’s major public transport companies and unemployed people together to encourage job seekers to use public transport when travelling to interviews or to their new job.

Unity 101 also held its third Derby Run, a community fun run aimed at improving the health with help https://www.ebalancediet.com/tips-on-nutrition-and-building-muscle/ and well being of people living in the Newtown and Nicholstown areas of the city, and to tackle the area’s littering and fly-tipping problems.

Hundreds of people from across Southampton attended Unity 101’s first ever Cricket Festival at the Southampton Sports Centre on Sunday 28^th July 2019. It was so successful that the Natwest OSCA awarded the station ‘Runner-Up for the Most Inspiring and Diverse Cricket Offer’!

In August, Unity 101 filled Guildhall Square with culture and colour for its third Hands of Love event, an annual celebration of the contributions that ethnic communities have made to Southampton and Britain.

Meanwhile back at Unity 101’s HQ, ‘Kelly’ always keen to upskill the station’s volunteers, built a fourth training and prerecording studio to enable presenters to practice their skills and pre-record content, like interviews, for their radio programmes. He also work alongside a local videographer to produce four professional training videos so that presenters can improve their radio production skills.

Ram Kalyan “Kelly” HonDarts vows to extend the station’s work saying: “Throughout 2020, we will continue to work closely with people and organisations who share our goals of uniting communities. If that is you – please get in touch”.