The Indignities of Illiteracy
Nelson Mandela so powerfully said, “there is no dignity in poverty.” Neither is there dignity in being illiterate. Many times I’ve heard people speak of their feelings of humiliation...
World’s Newest Nation Faces Huge Educational Challenges
Having recently emerged from nearly four decades of conflict, in which two million people were killed and four million displaced, everything was destroyed and everything needs rebuilding or building...
Honouring a Zambian Angel for International Women’s Day
If you remove the second ‘a’ from Angela, it becomes the word angel. And an angel is what Angela Malik is to hundreds of at-risk and orphaned children in Lusaka’s high density Ng’ombe compound....
Lifeplayer Features in ICT in Education Paper
Our solar and wind-up Lifeplayer media player is featured in a recent DFID-funded research paper on ICT in Education. The Lifeplayer, which is a media player, five-band radio and recorder,...
African Innovator of the Month
A Shining Role Model for ICT Women in Africa At just 25 Clarisse Iribagize has created one of the leading mobile technology companies in Rwanda. In 2012 she won an Apprentice-style reality show for...
My Oh So Amazing Week in Zambia
DAY 1 – Energy poverty in your face (4 October) The BA flight from London touched down right on time at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, just as the brilliant hot African sun was rising. ...
What About Including Women in Africa’s Transformation?
I left the closing plenary of the World Economic Forum on Africa in Addis Ababa last Friday with a profound sense of optimism. Josette Sheeran, the Forum’s new vice-chairman, moderated a...
Whirlwinds Of Change
When the London cabbie driving me to Paddington on Sunday asked where I was going and I replied that I was headed to Ethiopia, he said ‘What’s it like there now, is everyone still starving? Perceptions, it seems, aren’t easy to erase.
Shining a Light on Rose
Rose sits down to study on a worn out sofa in the corner of a tin shack at 7:00 pm each school night. After she’s helped with washing up and ensuring that the other 20 orphaned children she lives...
Much More than Mentor to Zambian children
Tall, well-spoken and smartly dressed in a grey blazer, Christopher Banda, 21, proudly tells me that he’s studying at a technical institute to become a procurement specialist. He credits his...
How the Lifeplayer Came About
Our Lifeplayer is a finalist in the INDEX: Design to Improve Life Awards. We’re honoured to be a finalist (in one of five categories) out of nearly 1000 global entries. INDEX: is the world’s top...
Enabling Students to Study Safely
Little Bees School is run by Mama Lucy Odipo in Starehe, a densely populated section of Nairobi’s Mathare Valley slum. Lifeline Energy has been working there for more than three years.
Keeping Stock For Disasters
Access to information, light and basic energy in a humanitarian crisis can be just as essential as food, water, medical supplies and shelter. For the past 12 years, Lifeline Energy has been involved...
A Tribute to Victor – a Hero of the Starehe Slum
Kristine Pearson, CEO of Lifeline Energy, pays tribute to Victor Ochieng, the headmaster of Little Bees School in Kenya.
Radios for the Referendum in Southern Sudan
From late 2006 to 2008, Lifeline Energy shipped 265,000 of our solar and wind-up radios to South Sudan in support of a broad-based civic education initiative spearheaded by the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
Seeing Gladys Again after Four Years
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.
1,000 Radios Delivered to Haiti
Summary of our solar and wind-up radios delivered to Haiti following the earthquake.
The Lifeplayer Launches to the World!
It is such a gratifying feeling to see something that you’ve nurtured for so long come to life. Last week we successfully launched a tool that we truly believe will be a game-changer in...
Ten Years with Lifeline Energy
Written by Michelle Riley. This weeks marks my 10th anniversary with Lifeline Energy, and what an exhilarating ride it has been! Back in 2000, we were using big, black radios with a spring crank. ...
Liberia – a First Visit
I’ve been to nearly half of the countries in Africa, but this is my first visit to Liberia – the first African country to elect a female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Sitting in the window seat of an old Ethiopian Airways plane, I noticed a fleet of UN helicopters…