The Bhutan Media Society (BMS) has said it has initiated a donation drive involving resettled Bhutanese and well-wishers from March 8.
The collected donations will be used for effective operations of BMS and its associates, according to Society’s Manager Vidhyapati Mishra.
“It is a matter of pride for BMS and its affiliates are soon becoming community-based media. Several from the Bhutanese diaspora have been expressing their financial commitments to support survival of the Bhutanese media in exile. More helping hands are likely to join us very soon,” said Mishra in a circular, Thursday.
Last week, the Society made a circular among resettled Bhutanese informing them of possible shutdown of BMS and its associates from March 10, 2012. However, in no time, dozens of community members responded stating that they do not want to see the decade-long media history in exile dying in lack of operational budgets and even committed their financial supports.
“We are receiving a number of similar responses everyday. And, we are certain that this will go up in the days to come since even friends of BMS have already heard about our fate. They are, indeed, sad to know about this. Some of them have already declared their commitments,” added he.
According to Manager Mishra, direct supports from the community do expect professional content generations in return, for which the Society is committed.
He further said that friends and well-wishers want the media in exile to be more responsible, professional and strongly committed to information dissemination on time.
The Society has also asked every Bhutanese to be a part of the mission by extending helping hands to transform BMS into community-based media. “We even want to request our well-wishers and friends to make donations at will for our survival,” he added.
(Click here to submit your donations)
Meanwhile, BMS said it will shutdown all of its associate media from March 10 stating that development of a comprehensive news site would begin from the same day. However, Bhutan News Service will continue feeding news from www.bhutannewsservice.com until the new site becomes ready, which is expected by the end of March.
