I didn't see this article posted on this list, but it's a nicely
written piece by David Goren about Thomas Witherspoon and his Ears To
Our World project, in the Wall Street Journal magazine from three
months ago. Sorry if this has already been seen by everyone.
-Ed Cummings
http://magazine.wsj.com/hunter/donate/tuning-in/2/
Tuning In: Ears to Our World
By David Goren
April 29, 2010 ET
The Wall Street Journal Magazine
Inspired by his boyhood experience with shortwave radio, Thomas
Witherspoon has brought the world to the remotest schools from
Cameroon to Haiti
?This is the sound of renewable education!? says Thomas Witherspoon,
37, founder of Ears to Our World, as he picks up a small portable
radio and quickly cranks its handle, producing a high-pitched, wobbly
whine. Inside, a dynamo charges the radio?s battery. Witherspoon has
taken his love of shortwave radio and filtered it through his
experience in the corporate world, devising a strategy to help the
most people for the least money. ETOW distributes wind-up radios to
isolated villages across Africa and into Belize and Romania, providing
listeners with vital information. His radios are also proving to be
disaster-relief heroes in earthquake-devastated Haiti.
?We give them to schools, and teachers use them to enhance the
classroom experience,? Witherspoon says. ?It?s not dependent on power.
It?s not dependent on Internet or any other infrastructures.? Founded
in 2008, ETOW has grown quickly, squeezing the most out of minimal
funding by collaborating with established educational organizations,
and by taking advantage of the one-to-many model inherent in
broadcasting. ?I?ve heard stories coming back from some of our
partners that when someone?s listening to a radio, you can guarantee
there?s going to be 10, 20 people listening at the same time,?
Witherspoon says.
Dan Whitman, a former press officer at the U.S. embassy in Haiti and a
member of the State Department?s Civilian Response Corps, says, ?It?s
an enormous leapfrog technology in poor parts of the world, where, in
previous times, there was no information. Now there is, and it?s
information that?s life and death for people.?
Last August, ETOW teamed with the American Haitian Foundation,
shipping radios to the 39 teachers at St. Antoine?s School, in the
town of Petite-Rivière-de- Nippes, Haiti, 68 miles from the capital.
The teachers brought the radios to their homes, gathering news to pass
on to their students. When the earthquake hit, the teachers cranked
them up to glean what information they could. ?After the earthquake,
all the radio stations were off in the country,? says Emmanuel
Pressoir, the school?s business manager. ?The telephone did not work,
even the cell phone. But with their radios, they could go on
shortwave, and be informed.? A week later, when a 5.9 aftershock
rocked the village and rumors of an impending tsunami stirred panic,
the teachers were able to turn to their radios again.
Witherspoon?s urge to send radios to listeners in remote locations is
rooted in his childhood in the blue-collar town of Hickory, N.C. In
1980, at age 8, Witherspoon received a gift from a great-aunt, an old
Zenith Transoceanic shortwave radio. Though sometimes unpredictable,
shortwave signals skip off the ionosphere and travel for thousands of
miles. ?I could go into my bedroom and just explore the world via
radio,? Witherspoon says.
He spent a few years designing communications applications in Europe
before earning an M.Sc. in anthropology from the London School of
Economics in 2003. While studying third-world development projects, he
realized how frustrating trying to help could be. ?So many of the
programs had too grand of a vision and didn?t develop it over time,?
he says. He returned to North Carolina, working for Self Help, a
nonprofit bank. After he and his wife became parents to premature twin
girls, they decided to devote themselves full-time to their care,
living on freelance work.
?I actually had time for the first time in my life to really think
about ideas I had,? Witherspoon says. He read about an organization
that had provided a school in rural Thailand with a solar panel. ?It
was amazing to see the impact that little bit of reliable power had on
the community,? Witherspoon says. ?I remember thinking, ?What would
even be better would be if these teachers had access to information
and lighting at home. How big of an impact would that have?? ?
Witherspoon mulled the idea over for a while. ?I?m a cautious
entrepreneur. I know to make it successful you can?t overinvest up
front,? he says. Witherspoon turned to Fred Osterman, owner of
Universal Radio, a retailer in Ohio, who sent him several wind-up
radios to test. He settled on the Etón Grundig FR200 for its
durability, reception and LED light (about $50 each). Osterman then
introduced Witherspoon to Esmail Amid-Hozour, the head of Etón
Corporation. ?The next thing I know,? Witherspoon says, ?a
tractor-trailer is arriving where we live and we?re offloading two
pallets of radios. Etón donated all the inventory we needed to get
started?500 radios.?
Next he teamed up with World Corps, a group that provides technology
to schools in Africa. After a successful trial at a school in Kibera,
Kenya, ETOW expanded into Cameroon, Uganda, Sudan and Mozambique.
Users had no problems plunging in. ?We?re not sending laptops where
someone needs to learn how to use them. We?re giving them a way to
receive radio without having to purchase batteries, which can cost up
to one week?s wages,? Witherspoon says.
His approach to the venture has paid off; funds have come via social
media and church and civic groups. This year?s goal is $75,000.
?Thomas?s operation is really a mom-and-pop, intrepid organization,
the kind we all love,? Whitman says. ?Because it?s very bootstrap?it?s
smart and it?s focused.? The key is the collaboration with other
charities. ?By piggybacking with them, we?re not spending the enormous
amount of resources it takes to work through the customs and duties
regulations,? Witherspoon says.
Another group with an insider?s grasp of the concept behind ETOW
provides financial, technical and emotional support. In March,
Witherspoon drove to Kulpsville, Pa., to set up a booth at the 24th
annual Winter Shortwave Listener?s Festival. ?That family of radio
enthusiasts has really powered a lot of what we?ve done.? Witherspoon
says. A silent auction raised $700, but networking with the radio
community is the real point for Witherspoon: It leads to partnerships
and new ideas, like the new portable solar panel ETOW is working with.
After its experience in Haiti, ETOW is broadening its mission to
include disaster relief?with 400 radios distributed to a
football-field-size encampment of 2,000 people?but it has also
strengthened Witherspoon?s commitment to his original idea: giving
radios to teachers. ?Many, many schools have been destroyed,? he says.
?And I fear a whole generation of children will miss two or three
years of their education during rebuilding.?
Leaving Pennsylvania to go to Washington, D.C., for meetings at the
State Department about possible joint efforts in Africa, Witherspoon
says, ?We all know that the Internet can be shut down pretty quickly
if someone really wants to. But you can?t take away radios. They can
work in a hut, they can work in the open: Radios can work anywhere.?
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
_______________________________________________
Swlfest mailing list
[email protected]
http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/swlfest
To unsubscribe: Send an E-mail to
[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe, or visit the URL shown
above.
For more information on the Fest, visit:
http://www.swlfest.com
http://swlfest.blogspot.com
