Kilifi sits on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast and has some of the country’s best beaches. However, it remains one of Kenya’s poorest districts. In terms of education, it has an alarmingly high drop out rate, lack of qualified teachers and over-crowded classrooms. 
 
Against this backdrop, Lifeline Energy (formerly the Freeplay Foundation) along with Plan International embarked on a programme to provide 264 Lifeline radios to 100 schools in the Kilifi district. The outcome has been overwhelming, with almost all the schools reporting encouraging feedback.  Each school has several hundred learners and class sizes tend to be large, therefore, these radios are reaching tens of thousands of children.
 
Children often feel isolated in rural areas and one child commented, “I get to know what is happening in other parts of the country,” adding that she “gets to hear the president talk.” She says: “One day I heard children singing and discussing on the radio. I want our school to also be recorded.”

Not only were the children benefiting from radios, some schools even reported “adult interference”, with teachers dominating the radios during lunch hours. In the end, a schedule had to be created to satisfy both groups.
 
The primary school curriculum is broadcast throughout the school year by the Kenya Institute of Education. In addition, they broadcast a variety of programmes on HIV/AIDS education, health messages and literature.