Tackling Energy Poverty

Learning At Taonga Market - Zambia

Focus Areas: Education

Partners: Education Development Center (EDC), Ministry of Education

Beneficiaries: Children, Learners, Community Mentors

Project Launched: 2004

Zambia is a sparsely populated, mineral-rich landlocked country in South Africa. It is estimated one in seven people is HIV positive or ill with AIDS. As a result, Zambia has one of the largest orphaned populations in the world. Many orphans have to support themselves and cannot attend formal school.

The Ministry of Education's Educational Broadcasting Services, working with the Education Development Center (EDC), launched a 20 episode pilot radio education project in July 2000 called Learning At Taonga Market (LATM), to provide a high quality basic education to orphans and vulnerable children using the Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) methodology. The programme was extended nationally in 2001 to cover the entire primary school curriculum. Today LATM is broadcast across Zambia for Grades 1-7.

To support this excellent educational programme, in 2004, we provided more than 3,000 Lifeline radios to the LATM project with the generous support of Rotary District 1160 (Ireland). A further 900 Lifeline radios were distributed in February 2006 with funds raised by The Times of London Christmas Appeal, and more radios have been funded by Reuters and Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland. Zambian students listen to their Lifeline radio

Over the years, LATM has been a resounding success. Tests undertaken by EDC show that children who attend Lifeline radio classes regularly achieve higher exam scores than children in formal schools. To this end, in 2007, with support from USAID, the Ministry of Education procured a further 8,000 of our Lifeline radios for distribution to government and community schools across the country. It is estimated that these radios are impacting more than one million learners. Some radios are listened to by as many as 300 students during the school day.

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The Times