Radio remains the most important communications medium in sub-Saharan Africa, especially so in Southern Sudan.  With electricity, cellular coverage and Internet restricted to a handful of cities in an area the size of Texas, radio remains the only technology that can reach isolated groups. That said, batteries outside towns and trading posts are hard to come by and expensive, making rural communities even harder to reach.

Picture courtesy T Thielen

From late 2006 to 2008, Lifeline Energy shipped 265,000 of our solar and wind-up radios to Southern Sudan in support of a broad-based civic education initiative spearheaded by the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The radios were deployed to support Let’s Talk, a 30-minute weekly programme covering a host of issues – political transition, rights and responsibilities in a democracy, the new constitutional framework and political processes. Providing listening access through our power-independent radios not only helped ensure access for women and youth, but also enabled people to listen to topics of interest like the weather, news and educational broadcasts. Let’s Talk was broadcast on Sudan Radio Service and Miraya FM, the south’s most popular station.

In a country with less than 50 miles of paved roads, delivering these huge consignments was no easy task, as evidenced by the trucks transporting radios stuck in the mud on the Juba-Yei road. The responsibility of distributing the radios fell to NDI’s partner NGOs working in the southern states for use by listening groups.

Juba-Yei road

Our project manager, Chhavi Sharma, and I travelled to Juba in February 2008 to work with NDI’s on-the-ground partners to help create a training programme. Although I had been to Khartoum, it was my first trip to the south. The training, attended by about 40 local and international NGO staff of the partner NGOs, took place in a community centre overlooking the Nile. Literacy levels in Southern Sudan are some of the lowest in the world and for women, literacy is an appalling 8%. Therefore, the training had to be highly visual and pictorial. Teachers and community leaders were identified as radio guardians, but we understood that many might never have operated a radio before.

Radio training programme in Juba

The lack of infrastructure makes feedback difficult to obtain.  However, I am confident that our blue radios have made a positive difference to people’s engagement in this week’s referendum to decide whether or not Southern Sudan should become Africa’s 53rd state.

I have watched with immense interest the television images of the long and patient queues of high spirited women and men wearing their best clothes and baking for hours in the sun waiting to stamp their thumbprints on the ballot paper.  It brought back fond memories of 1994, when I waited for several hours myself to vote in South Africa’s first democratic elections on the second of three election days. The role that radio played in informing around those elections cannot be underestimated either.

Dr Peter Friess, President of the Tech Museum of Innovation, with the Lifeline radio

By Kristine Pearson in Santa Clara

What a thrill to attend the 10th annual Tech Museum of Innovation Awards in Santa Clara on Saturday night. I was absolutely gob smacked that Peter Friess, the head of Silicon Valley’s Tech Museum walked on stage winding a Lifeline radio. Peter talked about the success of the Lifeline radio and Lifeline Energy (well, Freeplay Foundation, as we were known then) as the first winner of this award in 2001 and then excerpts of my acceptance speech was played.  I had no idea they were going to do this. What a huge honour it was to be formally recognized by the Tech Museum again.

This was the first time the gala was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center and was the largest attendance ever at 1,800 guests. Many attendees were legends in Silicon Valley’s tech community. Everyone had come to find out who the five winners would be and also to hear Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan.

Queen Rania of Jordan with Applied Materials CEO Mike Splinter

After dinner the award winners were announced from a field of three finalists  laureates in five categories:

•    Intel Environment Award – Peer Water Exchange, a project of Blue Planet Network – Worldwide
•    BD Biosciences Economic Development Award – Alexis T. Belonio, Center for Rice Husk Energy Technology
•    Microsoft Education Award – BBC World Service Trust, BBC Janala
•    The Katherine M. Swanson Equality Award – A Single Drop for Safe Water
•    Nokia Health Award – Venkatesh Mannar, Micronutrient Initiative

In this year’s education category I was delighted that one of our partners, the BBC World Service Trust, won for their English language mobile phone programming in Bangladesh.

Kristine Pearson accepting the first Tech Museum of Innovation Award in 2001

The Tech Awards have grown over the years into the world’s premiere awards for technology benefitting humanity and it will always be our honour to have been the very first winner.  The iconic Lifeline radio – which is now retired and has been replaced by the Prime – is a featured display at the Tech Museum in Silicon Valley.

Gladys Kadogomoses’ big blue radio works perfectly after more than four years of constant use by her and her ladies’ listening group. She told me with great affection what it had meant to her – how she learned so much about health, nutrition and women’s rights; how she followed events during the frightening unrest in 2008 on the BBC; how she listened to the debates around the referendum; and most importantly about the programmes that told her about the medicines she needed to take and when to take them – because Gladys is HIV positive.

I first met gracious and friendly Gladys just after she had been diagnosed. She told me openly that she felt hopeless, ashamed and contemplated suicide because her deceased truck-driver husband, had left her nothing other than a disease. Then she joined the women’s self-help group Vumilia (perseverance in Swahili) and met weekly with other women in similar circumstances. With support, encouragement, and acceptance coupled with anti-retroviral drugs, she began to put her life back together.

In 2006 Gladys received a Lifeline radio along with 30 other positive women. She was the only one not a grandmother.

This was the first time since then that I had been back to Vumilia, which is in Kabras, just north of Kakamega in Western Kenya. On the weekend, I visited Gladys in her home to find out about her first night with her Lifelight.  The day before she and 30 other women, participated in a Lifelight workshop.

Gladys beamed when she told me that her three children shared the light to study and for the first time she could see properly at night to read her Bible.  Also for the first time, they used the pit latrine after dark, feeling safe from snakes and being able to see. She said, “without this light, at night we are otherwise forced to use a small white bucket.”

In addition, she spoke about the savings on paraffin that she would make.  Gladys, like most women I’ve met who live in poverty, buy paraffin daily in small amounts.  She spends anywhere from 20-40 Kenya shillings (25-50 US cents) per day averaging KS10,950 annually or a staggering $135. When the children study for exams she buys enough for light three lights.  With the Lifelight, her savings will be significant.

Vumilia’s founder, Rose Ayuma Moon, who grew up in the Kabras area, established in 2004.  Although she lives in Nairobi, she set up Vumilia because she saw how the skyrocketing HIV/AIDS pandemic was disrupting the lives of alarming numbers in her community and at that time the government was doing very little. Today Vumilia provides health and psycho-social support to 200 HIV positive women – all but two are grannies. In addition, Rose, who tirelessly and heroically divides her time between Kabras and Nairobi, also established the Vulmilia Home for Orphaned Girls, a residential facility for 22 girls aged 3-16 in 2006.

Adolescent Girls With Lifeline Radios

Written by Chhavi Sharma

Ish… Ish… Ishaka echoed the Mission Suedoise hall full of more than 80 adolescent girls in Bujumbura, all between the ages of 14 and 22. Eager to learn about how to use their solar-powered and wind-up Lifeline radios and how to get the most out of the financial literacy, sexual and reproductive health, and life skills programmes created for them by Radio Publique Africaine, the girls listened enthusiastically and participated actively as I conducted the training.

Despite the interpretation time lag – from French to Kirundi and Swahili – the girls were bursting with questions about the radios and the Guardian Agreements. They were impatient to know why only one person had been selected as the safe-keeper of the radio, and if it was a fair process in the Solidarity Groups, as the group’s savings are kept in a locked box that has three padlocks, held by three different girls. The girls, part of a CARE International’s village savings and loans project in Burundi, were some of the most outspoken, articulate and interactive beneficiaries that I have come across in my training sessions and were a real pleasure to work with.

The Iskaha project aims to educate girls to access safe savings and financial resources, as well as improve life skills and social support systems, to enable them to steer the transitions from adolescence to adulthood.

International Tom Hanks Day organiser, Kevin Turk

This year’s International Tom Hanks Day raised $1265! The money raised from the event will go to our Haiti Humanitarian Radio Fund. The project provides wind-up and solar-powered Lifeline radios to children effected by the January 2010 earthquake. Thanks to contributions from donors like Kevin, they will be able to obtain access to basic education and receive ongoing education.

International Tom Hanks Day was founded by Chicago resident Kevin Turk. Kevin started the day by inviting a small group of friends to his house for a Tom Hanks movie marathon. Through word of mouth, the event grew each year.

Inspired by Tom Hank’s commitment to good causes, Kevin decided to make the day a charity event. The fundraiser now takes place Galaway Bay, a bar in Chicago where Kevin sells T-shirts, food and tickets for a raffle to raise money.

Kevin already has big ideas for next year, when the event will move to a larger venue.

“This year was a huge success. People were at the event before the doors even opened and they stayed well beyond the event hours.” say Kevin. “We are busting at the seems in our current venue, so next year we should be moving up to a larger space with a lot more activities. Thanks to Tom Hanks for all the support.”

For more information, please visit the International Tom Hanks Day website. Lifeline Energy would like to thank Kevin Turk – we look forward to the next fundraiser!

Operating as Freeplay Foundation has served us well for the past 11 years, however, we feel that our new name better reflects our wider mission to tackle energy poverty head-on for the poorest and most vulnerable.

In addition to including Lifeline radios and Lifelights in projects and programmes, in the near future Lifeline Energy will launch a brand new, revolutionary communications tool that we believe will have a profound impact on education and information access in the developing world. We will send you more news about this soon.

We will continue to focus our research on the impact of dangerous kerosene, firewood and candles, and the harmful effects these have on vulnerable women and children. This better equips us to create clean energy products and to advocate approaches that reduce their use and improve quality of life.

Lifeline Energy remains a 501 (c)(3) registered charity in the USA, a registered charity in the UK and is a Section 18A and 21 non-profit in South Africa. Under our new name, Lifeline Energy will retain all current board members as well as our ambassadors: Academy Award winning actor Tom Hanks in America; noted humanitarian Terry Waite in Europe; Mount Everest and South Pole mountaineer Sibusiso Vilane in Africa.

Please visit our redesigned website and learn more about Lifeline Energy; www.lifelineenergy.org
All email addresses that were formerly @freeplayfoundation.org will now be @lifelineenergy.org.

Organiser, Kevin Turk, has also teamed up with ILikeFun – the official T-shirt company of Tom Hanks Day. ILikeFun have produced several spectacular International Tom Hanks Day designs, which are available to buy from the ILikeFun website.

Money raised from T-shirt sales and the event will go to our Haiti Humanitarian Radio Fund. The project will provide wind-up and solar-powered Lifeline radios to children that were effected by the January 2010 earthquake. Children will be able to obtain access to basic education and will ensure Haitian children receive ongoing education.

The 7th International Tom Hanks Day will be at Galaway Bay at 500 W. Diversy, Chicago, IL, Saturday 27 March at 1:00 pm. If you cannot make it to Chicago for the big event, no problem! Donations to Lifeline Energy can be made on our website or you can purchase an International Tom Hanks day T-shirts from ILikeFun.net.

For more information, please visit the International Tom Hanks Day website.

We are proud to announce an innovative and cost effective programme to get Haitian children quickly back on an educational track following the January earthquake. Reports from Haiti are saying that children could face months or even years without education, making our project all the more important to get rapidly off the ground.

The initiative is a joint venture with leading radio education provider Education Development Center (EDC) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) – both organizations have extensive experience and an outstanding track record of working in Haiti.

The project ensures vulnerable children obtain a solid basic education, via Ministry of Education-supported interactive radio instruction using Lifeline radios. The broadcasts provide lessons in math and Creole as well as vital life skills lessons on topics such as water and hygiene.

In addition, EDC will provide the content and instruction for an early childhood education programme that caregivers and children can follow together. NDI will work with its broad network of Haitian community action committees to identify children, including orphans, whose schools have been destroyed and also distribute our Lifeline radios. Furthermore, broadcasts will be designed to incorporate post-trauma programming and provide psychosocial support to quake survivors.

Immediately after the earthquake, our US ambassador, Mr Tom Hanks kick-started our fundraising campaign. More than 1,000 Freeplay wind-up and solar-powered Lifeline radios have been committed. However, we need to deploy a further 2,000 to successfully implement this project, which will reach up to 100,000 children.

Radio is Haiti’s most popular form of media as electricity rates are low and batteries are expensive and hard to come by, especially in rural areas. Lifeline radios solve the problem of access. Let’s also remember that the radios will help with early warnings for the hurricane season.

The most recent UN reports confirm that all schools in western Port-au-Prince have been destroyed as well as 40% of schools in the southern part of the city – leaving thousands of children without access to education in a country where 47% of the population are illiterate.

“We have identified the most effective placement of our Lifeline radios for the rebuilding effort in Haiti. They’re robustly engineered for large group listening,” said Lifeline Energy CEO Kristine Pearson. “Thousands of children, including those newly orphaned and those who cannot attend formal school, will receive essential lessons even under the most basic of conditions. We cannot allow more time to be lost – education is the key to mitigating poverty in their lifetimes.”

We are ready to launch this project and we need your help to reach our goal. The cost of a delivered Lifeline radio is $65.00/£38.00 however any amount will be appreciated. This equals a few cents per child.

Make your donation by visiting our website:
http://www.lifelineenergy.org/haitiearthquakefund.html