Partnership was a key strategy in developing and evaluating the impact of this serial drama, which - while entertaining and educating its audience - was designed to motivate listeners to take charge of their health, seek out health services, and improve their own lives. Organisers explain that the combination of partners in methodology, service delivery, scriptwriting, broadcast, research and evaluation, contributed to the programme's design and strength. PCI-Media Impact elaborates: "Although serial dramas are not new to India's airwaves, the close partnership with a service provider that serves as a model in health care delivery in the storyline is designed to provide a framework for behaviours and actions promoted through the script." For example, Janani, a local health service provider, aided in the publicity and promotion of the show through posters, wall paintings, and handbills distributed through the network of rural medical practitioners (RMPs) within the villages they serve. Janani trains RMPs and their wives to promote basic health practices in remote rural communities. These RMP teams provide the infrastructure to reach the many villages where people are in need of basic health services and means of family planning. A media programme provides additional visibility and promotion of RMP services by modeling an RMP couple in the drama. Having actual RMPs provide the services in the villages was designed to allow listeners to put to practice the behaviours they have learned through the drama.

The experiences of the female protagonist, Taru, and the other characters of the soap opera were designed to serve as behavioural models as they struggled with challenges in their fictional lives. The premise that social content soap operas work as a behaviour change intervention is based on Professor Albert Bandura's social learning theory - that people learn from modeling the behaviour of those they respect and from observing the consequences (positive and negative) that result from the actions of these role models. Following this theory, the characters in the drama were modeled closely after real people with whom the audience can identify. Regular listeners were engaged to share in the struggles and the joys of the characters' lives.

Taru premiered on February 22 2002, in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, and followed with broadcasts reaching across the Hindi belt in May 2002. The 52-episode soap opera was broadcast once a week over the period of a year, addressing rural men and women of reproductive age with messages on sexual and reproductive health, family planning, HIV/AIDS prevention, the value of the girl-child, education, literacy, and other health and social issues.
Click here to listen to sample programmes, and to access detailed evaluation data.

Sexual and Reproductive Health, Family Planning, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS, Gender Equality, Education and Literacy, Substance Abuse and Domestic Violence, Rights, Inter-caste Harmony.

Here are some selected findings from the evaluation process:

• About 10% of all households in the general population in Bihar, and 24% of households in the population being addressed (those who owned a radio and were regular listeners), listened to Taru.
• Before Taru aired, respondents in the sentinel site area had significantly weaker beliefs about gender equity and family planning, and perceived greater barriers to achieve gender equity and small family size. Fewer people used certain family planning methods, and fewer people felt that their friends and family members approved their use of family planning methods.
• Researchers observed that "overall sales of Mithun condoms increase[d] over 200 to 600% as a result of the broadcasts."
• Reductions were identified in perceived barriers to family planning methods; increases were identified in: perceived approval from friends on family planning issues, perceived quality of family planning services and knowledge about where to go to get family planning services, awareness of Surya clinics, perception that Surya Clinic services were of high quality and trustworthy, use of Apsara oral contraceptive (as compared to the pre-broadcast Taru sample), and use of modern family planning methods (with the exception of vasectomy).
• Perceived collective empowerment significantly increased among respondents who listened to Taru. Post-Taru respondents felt that their communities displayed greater degrees of social capital when compared to the pre-Taru respondents.
• A group of teenage girls were inspired by Taru to set up a school for about 50 children who previously did not have access to education (Click here to watch a related video.)
• Research found that the greater the intensity of on-air/on-ground intervention, the higher the percent of respondents who knew about Taru's messages and the higher the numbers of those who actually listened to Taru. That is, listenership increased in environments where there was enhanced "buzz" (ground-based activities, publicity, listeners' groups, etc.) about Taru.
• According to evaluators, "Taru spurred a great deal of interpersonal communication about the need for girls' education and small family size among audience members, and also between audience members and their spouses, children, relatives, and friends, who were not 'directly' exposed to radio program."
• Evaluators also conclude that "[t]he enhanced visibility of local health services as a result of the various Taru-related pre-publicity and orchestration activities (including the organising of the folk performances and the handing out of transistor-radio awards to listening group members) led more villagers to seek their services."