School by Wind-Up Radio in Zambia
In the southern African country of Zambia, 65% of the population of 10 million lives on less than a dollar a day. As such, most families can’t afford the average $157 per term fee to send their kids to state or private schools. Thankfully, legions of volunteers are providing an alternate community-based form of education and they’re using wind-up radios to do it.
For the last five years, Britain-based charity Freeplay Foundation, along with the state Zambia Educational Broadcasting Service and other local and international partners have been providing Freeplay Lifeline radios - robust receiver sets powered by wind-up energy or the sun - to local communities for classes that can be taught anywhere. From a Reuters article at aljazeera.net…
Such classes are critical in Zambia partly because of the devastation caused by Aids, which kills teachers faster than replacements can be trained.
One in five Zambians is infected with HIV or living with Aids, and the disease has orphaned more than 800,000 children, many of whom have been left out of mainstream education and are being taught in community schools.
More than 4000 of the Freeplay Lifeline radios have been distributed thus far, with broadcasts of primary school subjects reaching about 100,000 kids. The Freeplay Foundation hopes to be able to provide another 4000 radios by the end of this year, raising their reach to 160,000 pupils.
Link to Freeplay Foundation web site.
Reuters article from aljazeera.net here.
[via Robot Wisdom weblog]
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