Voice activated speakers like the Google Home and Amazon’s Echo Dot have triggered renewed interest in audio media and boosted the popularity of podcasts according to Reuters Institute. In some places where HCR partners are working, portable speakers with digital audio are key sources for information and entertainment. Increasingly HCR partners are using speakerboxes where there are restictions on using FM radio…
The Next Ten
Eighteen months ago, Nanda could not read or write - today she regularly reads stories to her parents! The ADIVASI VOICES PROJECT is changing the lives of Nanda and others in her remote tribal community in Maharashtra, India. Her teacher says, "Thanks to the project there is now 100% school attendance and there are more girls in school than boys. You have helped parents see the value of education.”
"You kept your promise!"
What a joy to be back in the remote Maharashtran village of Kahandol in time to celebrate the inauguration of their two new wells. Just four months earlier I had been standing on a dried up riverbed with my Indian colleagues, Shilpa, Sam and Akshay and the head of the village, Patil Ramdas Warde. Ramdas told us how the drought had brought great hardship to his village, with only 28 days of water, and he had asked us if there was anything we could do to help …
Spraying for peace ...
Village Gets a New Voice
It’s hard to find many places on the planet today that don’t have access to some form of media. However in remote parts of India’s Maharashtra state, many indigenous tribal or Adivasi communities don’t have access to radio, television or even mobile ‘phones. Many can’t read.
It’s for that reason that HCR, in partnership with Seva Social Welfare Foundation, has begun a project to distribute “speaker boxes” with content that will transform lives.