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Radios teach Zambian children under trees
Fri Mar 10, 2006 08:17 AM ET
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By Shapi Shacinda

LUSAKA, Zambia (Reuters) - The children have trekked through mud and overgrown grass to sit under a guava tree and be taught by a radio.

A cool breeze lifts their spirits as a brilliant blue, solar-powered radio perched on a tree branch crackles with basic lessons in arithmetic or biology, tutoring Zambia's future doctors, accountants, lawyers or business leaders.

Thousands of children, who cannot afford to attend the southern African country's public or private schools, have turned to informal classes where the radio is the main learning tool available.

Volunteers equipped with Freeplay Lifeline radios -- bright, robust sets powered by wind-up energy or the sun -- and makeshift blackboards hold classes just about anywhere, including under trees.

Such classes are critical in Zambia partly because of the devastation caused by AIDS, which kills teachers faster than replacements can be trained.

One in five Zambians is infected with HIV or living with AIDS and the disease has orphaned more than 800,000 children, many of whom have been left out of mainstream education and are now being taught in community schools.

The program to provide radios for use in these informal classes was launched five years ago by Britain-based charity Freeplay Foundation, the state Zambia Educational Broadcasting Service and other local and international partners.

"I would like to become a medical doctor once I have completed my education," said 17-year-old Isaac Mwale, a model radio-school student who recently passed national examinations.

"THANK YOU"

More than 4,000 Freeplay radios are used to broadcast primary school subjects in around 850 community schools, and demand is growing as the informal classes attract children who might otherwise end up on streets.

Freeplay Foundation Executive Director Kristine Pearson says at least 100,000 Zambian children have benefited so far, easing pressure on schools where the teacher to pupil ratio is one to 60, and also catering for some of Zambia's poorest children.    Continued ...



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