Teachers at the Petite-Rivière school prepare to distribute ETOW radios to all of their colleagues. Radios shown in their protective carry cases.

The AHF is a non-profit organization that works to educate young people in Petite-Rivière-de-Nippes and the surrounding community. They do this through a three story school which, with the help of the local community, the group built to serve over 800 students daily. The school building is sited on a hill overlooking the sea and has become much more than just a school. It is an employer of 79 people (38 of whom are teachers), it provides nourishing meals to 560 of their children, the school building itself is used as a community resource for a variety of educational opportunities, and even serves as a local shelter from weather disasters. The Petite-Rivière school, moreover, is totally powered by renewable solar energy.

Petite-Rivière-de-Nippes, Haiti

Though at school, the teachers and students have access to electricity, at home, most do not. Our radios serve as a 24/7 reliable link to world news, language resources and educational programming, as well as to often life-saving weather information.

Haiti is often in the news for its seemingly disproportionate number of natural disasters due to its position in the Gulf, as well as its lack of safety infrastructure. Each year hurricanes, tropical storms and floods take the lives of hundreds of Haitians. The American Haitian Foundation owns and operates three radio stations that are used to broadcast emergency weather information and other important news and announcements to the local community. ETOW’s radio, the Grundig FR200 readily receives these stations and will prove an invaluable resource for the school and the surrounding communities where teachers and their students live.

ETOW is proud that, with the help of the AHC staff, we were able to send our radios to the school in the early part of the hurricane season this year. We would like to thank AHC Director, Jack Davidson,  as well as AHC board members and volunteers for helping with this project.

Project Education Sudan, our new partner, helps communities build schools in Bor County, Jonglei State, Southern Sudan. (Photo courtesy of PES)

We have been working with PES for several months now, putting together an exciting joint project:  ETOW will be sending enough radios to supply teachers in three local villages PES supports in Bor County, Jonglei State, Southern Sudan. We are most thankful to PES for handling most of the extensive logistical costs and arrangements involved in this project. Carol Rinehart, Executive Director and Co-Founder of PES, has embraced our partnership, as our radios will bring much-needed information into the homes of Sudanese teachers and students.

Project Education Sudan is an inspirational organization and a notable example of grass-roots, self-sustaining humanitarianism. PES is a non-profit created as a partnership between Sudanese and Americans in response to destruction that resulted from a twenty-year civil war between Northern and Southern Sudan. Their mission is to fund and support indigenous Sudanese organizations and communities that build primary and secondary schools, and to train teachers in rural villages in Southern Sudan.

Bor County, Jonglei State, Southern Sudan

Continue to follow this project here! We will post more information and photos as they become available.

It is with great excitement that we announce the arrival of our first radio in Kenya!  A teacher at St. Catherine School in Kibera, Kenya, is the recipient.  Serah Mucha of World Corps Kenya, who has partnered with Ears To Our World (ETOW), delivered our first radio herself.

Regarding this delivery, Ms. Mucha wrote:

The school is situated in Kibera, which is the biggest slum in Africa; it has 145 children and only 5 teachers, so this radio could be counted as the sixth. The buildings are dilapidated but what caught me was the eagerness for the children to learn and the excitement of a new method of learning in the classroom…

[I]t was so wonderful to give the radio away and see the smiles on people’s faces…

Serah Mucha of World Corps Kenya with teacher Reagan and students of St. Catherine School.

This radio, provided by Universal Radio, is just the first of many that will be sent to teachers at St. Catherine and other local schools. Teacher Reagan, the radio’s recipient, and World Corps Kenya are committed to providing ETOW with constructive feedback so that we can ensure our program is best tailored to their needs.

Thanks to Ms. Mucha and World Corps Kenya!  Thanks, too, to our wonderful sponsors Universal Radio and Etón Corporation. We wish Reagan and the other teachers and students of St. Catherine School our very best.

Our choice, the Grundig FR200

If you have been following our progress in testing radios for ETOW use, you’ll know that the choice of radio for our project has not been straightforward. Over the past two months, we have considered and thoroughly tested an array of radios from various manufacturers, searching for an appropriate quality product. It was important to us that the radio we selected be particularly durable and of excellent quality in every respect, able to readily withstand constant classroom use, as it will ultimately represent ETOW where we work.

We have at last made a choice: Grundig’s FR200. The compact and sturdy FR200 has several requisite features, including:

• Shortwave coverage down to 3.2 MHz, to cover local HF stations in Africa and the tropics
• FM and AM (medium wave) coverage
• Self-powered by hand crank:  two minutes of hand operation delivers approximately 30-40 minutes of radio listening
• LED reading lamp
• Sturdy chassis and rugged black canvas carry case with adjustable shoulder strap
• Volume and sound fidelity suitable for classroom use
• Superior sensitivity and selectivity for a radio in its class

The LED Lamp on the FR200 makes night reading possible

One of the most significant deciding factors has been the FR200′s indication of longevity. We were impressed, moreover, with all of the Grundig (also known as Etón) radios which we tested in this respect. Being able to supply not only a quality but also lasting product to our classrooms and teachers is consistent with our mission, in that we will endeavor to maintain the relationships we build with our schools.

We are also encouraged by the fact that Grundig/Etón’s mission coincides with our own. Here is an excerpt from their website:

Radio is a medium that transcends borders. The airwaves know no boundaries. From the veldts of Africa to the jungles of Southeast Asia to the suburbs of America, the airwaves, and the valuable information they carry, are available to anyone with a radio. As a company with a global presence, Etón is committed to helping the world communicate across borders and without boundaries.

Congratulations, Grundig/Etón, for crafting an exceptional product!

ETOW would also like to thank Universal Radio once again for helping us narrow our search and donating all of our test radios.