2005 Acceptance Speech - James. C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award

Acceptance speech given by Kristine Pearson, 9 November 2005.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I would like to thank The Tech Museum of Innovation, Mike Splinter & Applied Materials, and Jim Morgan for acknowledging me and Freeplay Foundation with this important award. I am truly grateful and humbled by this honour - which I will share with my hard working and dedicated colleagues.

I would like to congratulate the Tech Award winners tonight. Unless you work in the nonprofit sector, I think it is difficult to understand what it means to receive $50,000 of unrestricted funds. Unrestricted funds allow an organisation to chase a dream or take a risk something that most donors do not allow. And whether you are in business or the non profit sector, as many of you will know, it is first cash that is often the most difficult to raise. The Tech Award really gave us the start we needed to create what is now known as the Lifeline radio, a radio either wind up energy or solar power which frees the poor from the high cost of batteries.

Many have spoken about the vast chasm between the haves and have nots in our world. But I never truly understood this until I began working in the humanitarian sector myself. There are so many factors that contribute to the human tragedy that is poverty sometimes it seems so complex, so immense, so intractable, as to be almost hopeless. But it is not. If we each take a part of the whole, and work on our piece together, innovatively and imaginatively, someday the vicious cycle of poverty will be broken and all people will have a chance to build more productive and healthier lives.

In my case, I learned the extent to which lack of access to basic information contributes to extreme poverty and mortality. When a person or an entire community cannot read and can not afford even a transistor radio or the batteries to power it, their world closes in. New ideas do not spring forward. Life saving health information is blocked. This kind of isolation stops social and economic progress completely.

It seems incongruous that in the epicentre of the Internet, nanotechnology and semi conductors, I am speaking about an analogue radio. AM/FM/SW radio is not exactly a sexy technology, but it is the only technology that has the potential to immediately reach entire populations. Information and education spread via radio can change peoples lives overnight. A turn of a knob opens the their world - provided they have access.

This is critical in sub Saharan Africa where life expectancy is dropping to levels of the Middle Ages. In South Africa where I live, life expectancy has plummeted from 68 to 46 years in one decade. In Zambia, life expectancy is just 35 years. AIDS and other diseases are killing experienced farmers at an alarming rate, further exacerbating famine. In several countries, two teachers are dying for every one that is trained. There are an estimated 42m children in sub-Saharan Africa who have been orphaned by disease or conflict. This is the equivalent of the populations of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada and California, combined. On the African continent, half the population is under 18 years old. We are in danger of losing an entire generation of children who want to learn, but cannot afford to go to school and may have to work to survive.

Radio can help fill the void. Distance learning using radio can provide a high quality basic education in English, math and science. Edna is just ten years old and is a domestic worker in Tanzania whose parents gave her away because they were too poor to keep her. Edna told me she loves attending radio school when she is not working. She is learning so much and now reads clocks, labels on medicines, signposts and the Bible. Edna says she has learned about nutrition, first aid, the importance of washing her hands and about many diseases, like malaria, all from the radio school lessons. Tumaini is a 17 year old orphan in Dar es Salaam who cooks fries by the side of the road to and earns 50 cents a day. In January he plucked up the courage to enter first grade at radio school because he felt humiliated that he could not read money. Now he boasts his customers cannot cheat him.

Nelson Mandela often says there is no dignity in poverty. There also is no dignity in being illiterate. Radio offers adults practical information that can raise standards of living, via farming advice to increased crop yields, the safe use of pesticides, prevention and treatment information on Aids and other diseases and important news on civic affairs and democracy. For example, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Mathaai is working with us to get Lifeline radios to rural women in Kenya. She wants to ensure that all Kenyans understand not only key environmental issues, but also civil rights which will help to hold their government to high standards. In Congo and Sudan we are working on initiatives to entrench peace and stability. In Indonesia, Lifeline radios are helping people receive valuable information to rebuild their lives after the tsunami.

But my real love and passion is working with orphans or specifically children who live in households headed by a child. In sub-Saharan Africa, girls head an estimated 75% of these households and some are as young as nine. These children are traumatised; many have seen their parents die before their eyes. They take on adult responsibilities no child should have to shoulder and are susceptible to health risks, violence, exploitation and discrimination.

Through my work, I have visited many child led households. How they find the courage to cope, I have no idea. Typically, these children eke out an existence by farming or working for neighbours. Most have only the clothes on their back and a few meagre possessions. They have no one to hug them, to tell them they love them or to guide them through life. They are destitute. Despite these unspeakable hardships, I am continually amazed and inspired by their desire to learn and how hard they strive to make better lives for themselves. By giving these children Lifeline radios, it truly does change their lives.

Our longest running programme is in Rwanda. The 1994 genocide not only left 800,000 dead, it left behind a million orphans. Almost twelve years on, there are more than 65,000 households headed by a child. That number is increasing because of Aids. These children are the poorest of the poor.

You might think that children living on their own would want to listen to music. However, that is not the case. Let me tell you about something that happened last month. While in Rwanda I was in the field with the new country director of CARE International, our local partner, who was newly arrived and not yet familiar with the radio project. CARE had assembled about 60 heads of household for us to speak to about the radios and their impact. The country director said to the kids, I have a lot of money in my pocket, but I don't have a wind-up radio. Will one of you sell me your radio? The children spontaneously replied, no. Why not? he asked. Because you cannot sell a gift. Then he said, Okay, I have a cow I would like to trade for a radio. Will anyone trade me their radio for a cow? In unison, the group replied no! But why not? he asked again. A girl in the back stood up and said, because a cow does not give you information.

These children say they want listen to the news because they want to be informed and that the voice they trust is the voice on the radio. Children often speak of their loneliness and how the radio helps ease their isolation. They all want information about Aids and other diseases, not to mention children's rights, animal care and the market price of crops. Many say they never thought they would be rich enough to own a radio and that up to 40 children come to listen at once. One budding entrepreneur even told me he charges adults to listen.

On the cover of the Tech Awards invitation and tonights programme, is a photograph of a boy standing with his Lifeline radio on a hoe. This is not an anonymous African child. His name is Jonathan Macumi, or Johnta, a 14 year old Rwandan who is the head of his household. When I took the photo nearly two years ago his parents had recently died of AIDS, leaving him to look after four younger siblings, including an infant.

Last month while in Rwanda, I visited Johnta and some other children I had given radios to. When he saw me, he came running down the hill with a big smile wearing the same shirt and shorts he had on the last time I saw him over a year ago. I went to embrace him and he put his arms out but did not seem to know what to do next. I realised that he has no one to hug him and that affection was awkward for him.

Johnta proudly produced his Lifeline radio, which still worked well, although it was pretty battered. Johnta told me they listen to the radio from the time they wake up until the time they go to sleep. They want to hear the weather and the news every day to keep informed. When I asked him what he had learned lately, the told me he had learned about the president of the World Bank, which I found astonishing.

Since it was launched in April 2003 around 100,000 Lifeline radios have been committed to humanitarian projects. Providing a tool that enables sustainable access to information this is our piece of the puzzle. As more and more people around the world step forward to help their fellow man, I believe the puzzle pieces will come together, making a better world for all.