Read Our Selection of Blogs
Interesting perspectives, unique experiences and keen observations - from our CEO, staff, partners and friendsWhat Would We Do Without Teachers?
By Laura Ruggles. As part of our internship, Lynsey, Jack, and I have been visiting Taonga radio schools around Chikuni Parish to learn more about radio education. The Ministry of Education in...
Energy – The Oxygen of Africa’s Growth and Development
Historically people associate the sound of Africa as the roar of the lion; but in reality, it’s been the roar of the diesel generator. Herds of these archaic beasts are on the prowl. Their habitat...
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 because...
NOT A BLOG – Disaster Response Needs Radio
Since our inception in 1999, Lifeline Energy has been directly involved in every major humanitarian emergency.
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,...
Radio is Still Relevant
Hannah Fitt, Director of The SAFE Foundation, and Habbiba Mackintosh, a volunteer at SAFE, for World Radio Day, 2013 Back in 2010 we were working in India in the scrub jungle of Tamil Nadu. It ‘s a...
A Radio Station Lives on Because of their Dedicated Listeners
Karen du Toit, Afrikaans Archivist in the SABC Radio Archives, for World Radio Day, 2013 Springbok Radio, a former radio station of the South African Broadcasting Corporation in South Africa, closed...
What World Radio Day means to Tom Hanks Day
Kevin Turk, co-founder of Tom Hanks Day, for World Radio Day, 2013 | Radio means a lot to a lot of different people. To some it is a source of enjoyment; to others it is their means to staying connected with the world.
Building an Open Platform for Radio Reporting in West Africa
Adam Thomas of Sourcefabric for World Radio Day, 2013 “There are conflicting accounts of the turn of events on the diplomatic front in the long-running Ivorian standoff, with reports that embattled...
The Many Sounds of Radio
Mary Myers for World Radio Day, 2013 My love of radio started in Mali in the early 1990’s in a small community station in Douentza in the arid Sahel, not far from Mopti. Radio Douentza was one of...
International Tom Hanks Day
It’s the tenth anniversary of International Tom Hanks Day. It’s founder, Kevin Turk, has some fun things planned this year. Find out how you can get involved.
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...
LIFTing the Lifeplayer MP3 in Zambia
Meet the Educational Broadcasting Services (EBS) team. This dedicated group of women and men are behind the Learning at Taonga Market primary distance education programme in Zambia. We’re...
Not the Picture the Brochure Painted – Mozambique in 1993
In 1993, just a year after the peace accords ended a brutal civil war where a million people were killed and five million were displaced, I took a mini-break in Maputo. I was working in the private sector in Johannesburg back then and couldn’t resist a holiday by the sea.
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. The...
Starting All Over Again in Zimbabwe
Although they’re located just to the north of us in South Africa, I hadn’t been to Zimbabwe since 2003. Back then I was involved in providing our radios for a local language soap opera drama to help communities learn about health issues…
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.