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Audio-visual teaching technology is well-documented in the developed world to have significant impact on learner comprehension and retention of material. In the developing world, a number of organizations are working to translate this power by using various A/V solutions in places with extreme poverty and difficult environmental conditions.
This is a database of organizations successfully using instructional technology equipment and methods to help alleviate poverty.
Bilingual Radio for Colombia is a pilot project providing basic English skills to rural Colombian children. Through the program, EDC is helping Universidad del Norte (UniNorte) to develop and produce Interactive Radio Instruction programs for English as a Second Language and to train primary school teachers to use the programs.
EDC is helping Paraguay’s Ministry of Education and Culture to promote interest in math among young children and support their instructors to teach early numeracy more effectively. The Paraguay Early Childhood IRI Math Program nurtures positive attitudes toward mathematics and develops a solid foundation in basic math among children four to six years old.
The Mali USAID/ PHARE program supports the Malian Ministry of Education's efforts to improve the quality of elementary education, with an emphasis on literacy. This five-year program works nationally, reaching over 40,000 classrooms and 500,000 students.
The Package for Improving Education Quality (PIEQ) project aims to improve French and math learning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Through collaboration with DRC's National Ministry of Education (MNE), PIEQ builds the capacity of teachers, schools, and communities in three Congolese provinces to increase student learning by improving teaching and the school environment.
The Freeplay Foundation provides wind-up, solar-powered Lifeline radios to people in the poorest, most isolated regions of the world. The radios will provide thousands of displaced tsunami survivors living in temporary camps with vital news and information that will help them access aid services, reconnect with their loved ones, and recover from the trauma as they re-build their lives and communities.
USAID in partnership with the government of Nigeria has launched the Community Participation for Action in the Social Sectors project, known as COMPASS. COMPASS seeks to increase the number of pupils who complete primary school, with an emphasis on the success of girls. The five-year project combines the expertise of nine major American and Nigerian organisations to engage local communities in building high quality, integrated education and health services.
In Northern Uganda radio is supporting the moves towards peace and reconciliation. Local radio stations carry programming that encourages LRA members, sympathizers and abducted children to engage in dialogue and the peace process.
Overcrowding has led to the near-total destruction of family and social networks. Children suffer most. Acute malnutrition is widespread and children are vulnerable to malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea and other diseases. With no schools and no prospect of work or other occupation, young people have nothing to do but sit idle in camps. With the war coming to an end, radio is playing a vital role in resolving the conflict. Local radio stations carry messages of peace and reconciliation and provide news, health advice and life skills information to people living in the camps.
Waterborn diseases, like malaria, were rife; children lost at least six months of education and many families returned to find their land occupied by others. With nearly all records washed away there was no way to re-establish ownership. To rebuild any kind of sustainable future, these communities urgently needed reliable information. Recognizing that radio is the quickest and most effective way of relaying important messages, the government made an urgent request for donations of Lifeline Energy wind-up radios to ensure that even remote communities, without access to electricity or other resources, could tune in to vital information.
In response to the catastrophic 2000 floods, 1,500 Lifeline Energy radios, sponsored by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) Mozambique were distributed in collaboration with the Mozambican Red Cross (CVM) in four of the provinces most vulnerable to cyclones and flooding.
Mozambique has experienced serious flooding several times in the past decade, driving thousands of people from their homes and causing tragic loss of life and livelihoods. With generous support from Anglo American Lifeline Energy was able to provide the international anti-poverty NGO Action Aid International Mozambique with 300 Lifeline radios for distribution to communities in areas where floods frequently occur.
In 2002, in a ground breaking initiative, 12,500 Lifeline Energy radios were given free in exchange for illegally held weapons. Radios for the Consolidation of Peace, a partnership between the Lifeline Energy and the government of Niger, aimed to disarm militants and encourage sustained peace and development.
More than 650 Lifeline radios have been distributed to women's listening groups and community health centers to provide dependable access to Animas Sutura's interactive programming. Animas Sutura, a local social marketing organization, launched 'Les Aventures de Foula' (The Adventures of the Foula, a name for a condom they distribute), a radio communications campaign in 2007.
Mr. Kalanda reiterated that there is a visible change in children learning with the radio as an effective complement to the traditional lecturing and rote learning techniques used by teachers in classrooms of over 150 students. Our radios, with their solar and hand-crank charging options, enable daily access to Tikwere's interactive lessons and assist children hone their listening, speaking and writing skills. More than 13,000 Lifeline radios have been distributed to date, reaching an astonishing two million learners.
In the Nduta refugee camp in April 2003, Devotte Hafashimana became the world's first recipient of a Lifeline radio. She was the leader of one of the youth groups able to listen to the Voice of America (VOA) programme Ejo Bite? which means How about the future? in English. Young people produced Ejo Bite? for their peers, in the two main languages of the young refugees - Kirundi and Kinyarwanda. The program reflected their lives, their concerns and their interests. For children who had to leave their country, their schools and everything behind them, radio provided them with valuable information to help them cope. VOA’s Ejo Bite? facilitated youth discussions around issues such as peace and reconciliation, violence against youth, the importance of open communication and AIDS prevention.
Sengerema is a rural district in northwestern Tanzania, an hour drive from Lake Victoria, where more than 80% of the population are poor and engaged in subsistence farming. A multi-purpose telecenter is making a positive difference to the region. The Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), has invested $100,000 in the center which boasts a community radio station, an Internet cafe, a business center with phone, fax and secretarial services.
In Tanzania, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has rapidly spread into rural areas, increasing the previously low rural prevalence to more than 10% in some areas. Mother-to-child transmission appears to be on the increase, as more and more women continue to become infected and pregnant. Recognizing that HIV/AIDS was not only a health issue but a serious development problem the Ministry of Health moved to scale up and intensify various interventions for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support.
Tanzania has a young population with half under 25 years of age. Young people have the highest risk of contracting HIV/AIDS as well as other sexually transmitted illnesses. In the absence of information on sexual and reproductive health or adequate services Mambo Bomba, a variety radio program, was created to reach out to young people and provide information on issues from relationships to safe sex practices. Its weekly broadcast was presented for young people by young people. Mambo Bomba was broadcast by Radio Tanzania Dar es Salaam.
Broadcast over the national radio station network, Mambo Elimu provides basic education to children aged 10-17. But children out of school, especially orphans, need more than literacy and numeracy, so programs also include segments on AIDS prevention, nutrition, hygiene, gardening, and other practical survival skills. Mambo Elimu has been an unqualified success and children learning from Mambo Elimu with a Lifeline radio score better marks than children in formal schools and in half the time.
HakiElimu’s vision is that every child in Tanzania is able to enjoy her or his right to basic education in schools that respect dignity, foster creativity and crucial learning and advance human rights and democracy. They actively seek to achieve their vision by facilitating public participation in education governance.
In Zambia, an estimated one in four people is HIV positive or ill with AIDS, and in some areas prevalence rates are higher. Some groups are especially vulnerable – most notably young women and girls. The impact of HIV/AIDS has been enormous. Apart from the tragic human and social cost, HIV/AIDS has seriously weakened the Zambian economy and the capacity of the government to provide essential services.
In a bid to generate employment and income for rural women in the Mansa district, one of the most impoverished regions in Zambia where there is limited access to electricity, groups of women, many of them widows and orphans have been selected to become Weza Pioneers.
Across Zambia, tens of thousands of children have lost one or both of their parents to HIV/AIDS or other illnesses. CARE’s SCOPE-OVC program (Strengthening Community Partnerships for the Empowerment of Orphans and Vulnerable Children) works through community schools to help orphans and vulnerable children deal with the loss and grief they are experiencing.
Education Development Center and the Ministry of Health have collaborated to form QUESTT (Quality Education Services Through Technology) to produce and broadcast a radio series, titled Our Family. The project recognises that the key to overcoming both HIV/AIDS and its consequences rests within communities. It urges whole communities to tackle the issue, working with learners, teachers and parents, and encourages parents to speak to their children about illness, death and other taboo subjects.
With training and support from Lifeline Energy, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) successfully distributed 500 lifeline radios to teachers in the KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape provinces. The project also incorporates an innovative curriculum covering key aspects of HIV/AIDS for school children.
Children with HIV/AIDS require intensive, committed health care. Kidzpositive, a Cape Town based NGO dedicated to improving the health of HIV-positive children in Southern Africa is providing anti-retroviral treatment and AIDS education for children. Kidzpositive has also created a community of mothers at Cape Town’s Groote Schuur hospital who work together to support each other and generate income through the Positive Beadwork Project. Eighty percent of the profits go back to the women, providing income for over one hundred AIDS affected women and their families.
MaAfrika Tikkun, a South African NGO working primarily with orphans and other vulnerable children and home-based caregivers, partnered with the Lifeline Energy to provide 300 Lifeline radios to orphans and vulnerable children in the Gauteng and Western Cape provinces of South Africa. These children live in peri-urban shack settlements and are faced with daily hardships including poverty, disease, substance abuse, domestic violence and poor infrastructure.
Lifeline Energy joined THBC and Sibusiso Vilane, our South African Ambassador, to provide 300 Lifeline radios to vulnerable children. The recipients were children, aged 12 to 18 years, many in child-headed households or a household with an elderly or sick relative.
Less than 5% of Rwanda’s 8.6 million people have access to electricity. The capital, Kigali (the fastest growing city in Africa) is home to roughly 5% of the total population, yet consumes 80% of the country’s energy. It also suffers power outages that can last for days. An estimated 93% of Rwandans live in rural areas without access to any form of modern energy.
HIV/AIDS has spread rapidly throughout Rwanda in recent years, leaving even more children without parents. According the Rwandese government, there are 101,000 households headed by a child – 75% are headed by girls. These children have limited access to health care or education; are often exploited, not only by their own community but even by relatives, and have little in the way of basic household or agricultural necessities.
The Twubakane project distributed 180 Lifeline radios to women and children in rural communities in Kigali Ville, Kibungo, Gitarama and Gikongoro to foster positive behaviour and stimulate dialogue between couples and between communities and health centres on family planning reproductive health, malaria, nutrition, improving child survival and HIV/AIDS.
The ravages of genocide and AIDS have claimed the lives of at least one parent of almost a third of Rwanda’s children. Thousands of boys and girls throughout the country have been forced to take on adult responsibilities. Lifeline Energy donated 1,500 Lifeline radios to child-headed households in Rwanda. These radios increased the children’s sense of self esteem as their radio gives them a new status in their villages.
Providing Lifeline radios for the orphans of Rwanda has been one of our major priorities and our goal is to provide a Lifeline radio to every child-led household in Rwanda. Our long standing partnership with CARE, one of the world’s top aid agencies, has been key in progressing towards achieving our aims.
Lifeline Energy (formerly the Freeplay Foundation) along with Plan International embarked on a program to provide 264 Lifeline radios to 100 schools in the Kalifi district. The outcome has been overwhelming, with almost all the schools reporting encouraging feedback.
As Burundian women receive only 1.9 per cent of loans made by commercial banks, the Ishaka project helps girls who live in households and are heads of households to access safe savings and financial resources.
Began as a small group of 30 HIV positive women meeting to help and support each other. The project as now grown into a fully fledged community organization which ensures that essential services such as nutrition, health care and education are made available to community members. Vumilia works to improve the well-being of families and individuals both economically and psychologically within a supportive environment.
Battery-operated and hand-cranked radios can operate without grid-based electrical power, and in school systems where skilled teachers are in short supply. Radio can improve student learning while helping teachers gain skills and confidence. Also, radio is best used as a tool to guide whole-class participation and to provide teachers with hands-on experience in specific pedagogies.
Coffee Lifeline is a radio communications project that provides essential information and educational programming to coffee farmers, their families and the communities in which they live via Lifeline radios.
Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) is an instructional tool designed to deliver active learning by radio. Audio lessons are developed to guide the teacher or facilitator and students through activities, games, and exercises that carefully teach organized knowledge and skills.
The Ministry of Education's goal is to ensure that all individuals have access to primary school education regardless of age, special needs, and gender. They have constructed a parallel system of formal and alternative education systems to achieve its goals and address widespread illiteracy.
Using Zambia, Somalia, and Sudan as case studies, presenters discussed the benefits of Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) to improve student learning and teacher competence both in general and particularly as a means of reaching hard-to-reach children. IRI is no longer an experimental technology; in numerous settings it has proven to be quite a successful aid to student learning, especially in language arts, mathematics, and social studies for the lower grades.
Video Volunteers' mission is to empower the world's poorest citizens with the media information they need. Their goal is to provide disadvantaged communities with the journalistic, critical thinking and creative skills that are necessary for their future improvements. As a result, the poor will be able to share their perspectives and take action on the issues that matter to them.
The WorldAgInfo Design Team was given the opportunity to explore the landscape of agricultural education and information systems in South Asia and Africa. The goal of the project is to recommend potential areas of investment that will improve the effectiveness of agricultural education and ultimately the practice of small-scale agriculture at the local level.
Literacy Bridge shares locally-relevant knowledge through the Talking Book with people who lack literacy skills and access to electricity. Their focus is empowering people to improve their literacy skills as well as the health and income of their families.
Drishtee Times focuses on teaching English to students in rural India. They accomplish this by connecting the children to a teacher in Delhi through the use of a mobile phone and speakers.
Building Education Support Systems for Teachers (BESST) works with their community, government and institutional partners to identify, design and implement projects that promote quality education and a vibrant civil society.
Lifeline Energy collaborates with governments, international aid organizations, in-country NGOs, local communities, individuals and corporations working across a range of disciplines: education, health, agriculture, complex emergencies and peacemaking. Their most important objective is to get self-powered energy solutions - Lifeplayer, Prime radio and Lifelights - into the hands of those who need them most.
English in Action aims to provide English as a new technical skill to 25 million primary, secondary school children and adult learners.The effort will bring innovative ways of learning the language using modern technology. The understanding and use of the English language will help the people in Bangladesh contribute to the economic development of their country.
Equal Access Afghanistan uses a range of tools to achieve social change, such as community mobilization training, radio dramas, mobile live theatre, round table discussions, media training, TV documentaries, TV dramas and remote learning through radio. Equal Access provides real life examples and role modeling that enables people to improve their lives and communities.
Digital Green is dedicated to improving the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of small farmer livelihoods. They raise the livelihoods of smallholder farmers across the developing world through the targeted production and dissemination of agricultural information via participatory video. This work begins by disseminating targeted agricultural information to small and marginal farmers using a cost-realistic media exchange that is supported by existing, people-based extension systems and local facilitators.
Digital StudyHall records live classes by the best grassroots teachers, transmits them, collects them in a large database, and distributes them on DVDs to poor rural and slum schools. Education experts and teachers use the system to explore pedagogical approaches involving local teachers actively "mediating" the video lessons.
The Radio Instruction to Strengthen Education (RISE) project teaches Tanzanian children literacy, numeracy, HIV/AIDS prevention, and life skills related to health, hygiene, and nutrition via interactive radio instruction (IRI).
The Southern Sudan Interactive Radio Instruction Project (SSIRI) provides radio broadcasts, solar-powered and wind-up radios, teachers' guides, and initial training for teachers. In addition, the project has outreach coordinators who train teachers on how best to use and care for the radios and how to integrate the programs into the school day.
One Media Player per Teacher 
