Solar MP3 players to educate Zambian children

We ended 2015 with a productive trip to Zambia, to connect again with our partners and visit schools that are using our solar and wind-up Lifeplayer MP3s.  What a wonderful trip it was, too!

We’re excited to report that the Ministry of Education has committed to installing a radio transmitter with a national footprint, which will have dedicated channels just for education programs. The first programs to be broadcast will be Learning at Taonga Market, the interactive radio instruction (IRI) lessons that have been used in the country for the past 12 years. This means children everywhere in the country will be able to access radio school; and even government schools may decide to listen, given the severe shortage of trained teachers. We’ll be working with the Ministry to supply more Lifeplayers to community schools, beyond what we had initially thought.  This exciting news means we'll be able to support many more students and their teaching mentors.

Although we hadn’t planned for our Lifeplayers to be placed into urban schools as a priority, we visited an elementary school in Lusaka through our old friend Mr Mvula, the very first teaching mentor we worked with in Zambia. Impossibly crowded with 5,000 students, the school runs two shifts a day; one in the morning and another in the afternoon. Of the students, 75% are orphans, all are from poor families, and double shifts are the only way to cope with the number of children enrolled. Even so, each class has around 130 children.  The job of teaching such large classes is made more difficult by a lack of resources and basic supplies like chalk. Having Lifeplayers provides an outstanding solution to support teaching at these urban schools.  

As a second grade teacher told us, “If I had a Lifeplayer half the class would listen to the radio teacher, while the rest could listen to me. Then we could switch. Having a radio teacher is like having a teaching assistant.  It would be such a help to me and a benefit to the children because they love the lessons.”  And we saw for ourselves how much they enjoyed learning through songs, dance and movement.  This school alone wants 20 Lifeplayers – and as soon as possible!

We’re looking forward to another trip to Zambia in the near future, where we’ll be visiting community schools in the eastern part of the country.  With your help, we can help provide a high quality, basic education to hundreds, even thousands of learners, for around $1 per student.  One Lifeplayer reaches at least 60 learners and often it’s more than 100.  We think it's a great investment!