The Lifeline is a self-powered radio designed to provide distance education to children living on their own. It is constructed to operate in harsh conditions and climates. Project organisers describe it as colourful, easy to use, receiving excellent AM/FM/SW reception and able to play for many hours on wind-up energy or solar power.

As the Freeplay Lifeline radios need no batteries or electricity, children can access radio programmes at anytime. They can listen non-stop to broadcasts on health care, HIV/AIDS, clean water, farming and animal husbandry. They can also listen to music and sports. In this sense, Freeplay radios offer the children communication "lifelines" to the outside world and access to other broadcasts, such as Voice of America's show, aired in their own language.

Freeplay radios offer the children communication "lifelines" to the outside world and access to other broadcasts, such as Voice of America's show, aired in their own language.

Children.

“As a result of the 1994 genocide and AIDS deaths, about 400,000 Rwandan children currently live on their own. The head of the household usually is a girl who looks after several younger children. For example, Mukakrimba has been the head of her four-person home since she was ten. She maintains a subsistence living for her family without parental care. Like most of the other 65,000 child heads of households, she cannot attend school. Radio serves as her companion, parent, and teacher.”

According to the project organisers, Mukakrimba said: “The most important thing I had was my goat, but now it is my radio. I listen to the news to learn, since I cannot attend school.”


Other projects and countries that use the Lifeline radios are:

• Afghanistan - Lifeline radios were distributed to female teachers in remote areas, enabling them access to teacher training programmes.
• Madagascar- Lifeline radios were used to support a national radio-based health and HIV/AIDS campaign.
• South Africa - Lifeline radios are integrated into the youth radio programme Soul Buddyz. The radios are used to augment Soul Buddyz listening clubs. Some of the radios were given in support of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund’s Goelama Project, which supports child heads of households in the Kwa-Zulu Natal province.
• South Africa - Lifeline radios are included in the expansion of the radio version of Sesame Street, called Takalani Sesame, and are distributed to teachers in early childhood learning centres in rural areas.
• South Africa- Kidzpositive, a Cape Town-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), is using Lifeline radios for HIV-positive mothers involved in an income-generating beadwork project at Groote Schuur Hospital.
• South Africa - The Media Monitoring Project is using Lifeline radios to monitor the listening habits and preferences of child heads of households.
• Tanzania- Lifeline radios are used in six different projects in Tanzania: 1) The African Youth Alliance (AYA) radio programme called Mambo Bomba; 2) a primary distance learning radio programme of the USA-based Educational Development Center (EDC) that offers English, maths and social studies via radio. Broadcast over the national radio station network, Mambo Elimu provides basic education and life skills to children aged 10-17 in rural community schools who are at risk of the worst forms of child labour; 3) a Ministry of Labor, Youth Development and Sport-sponsored youth sports and HIV/AIDS awareness campaign; 4) a project that supports youth development through a variety of media, including radio; 5) a Ministry of Health initiative where Lifeline radios are placed in prenatal clinics where women gather; and 6) a community radio station/telecentre near Lake Victoria where the radios are used for primary education and to teach children about various technologies.
• Zambia- Lifeline radios are incorporated into a distance education project, Learning at Taonga Market, which provides English, maths, and life skills training to orphaned or other children unable to attend formal school.
• Zimbabwe- A health radio drama, called Mopani Junction, is supported by over 2000 Lifelines which were distributed by NGOs and faith-based organisations.