Milestones

• January 2008

      First Voice International (FVI) establishs a five year partnership with

      the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and its Learning Center through a generous

      grant. The grant, which extends over five years, allows FVI to build capacity

      in rural communities in southern Africa through a comprehensive    

      communication and information dissemination strategy.  The partnership will

      begin with a focus in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana.

      As the partnership progresses, the focus plans to include Lesotho, Malawi

      and Swaziland.

• June 2007

  FVI completes pilot project in northern Laos with the Asian Development Bank. The pilot project shows that the technology is efficient, content is relevant; listening group model effective and satellite broadcast is not prohibitive in cost. The conclusions are the pilot met both of its objectives – to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technology and increase the level of general knowledge about HIV/AIDS prevention and human trafficking; the technology is the least complicated aspect of the project implementation; exposing communities to information creates a demand for more information but how much, for what purpose and how best to package that information are specific ongoing questions to address.

• April 2006

  FVI partners with RANET to provide critical technical assistance to UNESCO in order to improve SMS systems to service tsunami affected countries and provide system design on the use of Inmarsat BGAN and other communication technologies for work with tsunami affected countries.

• February 2006

  FVI expands MMS to the Northeast beam of the AsiaStar™ realizing full coverage on of the AsiaStar™ satellite. MMS service becomes available throughout Asia and the western Pacific.

• December 2005

  FVI established First Voice Africa (FVA), a Kenyan non-profit organization based in Nairobi serving as its regional office. FVA focuses on enhancing the ability of Africans to share local, regional and global solutions to the challenges of improving the quality of life across the continent.

• March 2005

  The Asia Pacific Development Channel is launched. FVI, together with Internews, began broadcasting relief and development information to tsunami affected community groups and radio stations throughout the Banda Aceh area in both Bahasa Indonesian and the local Achinese language. It currently reaches tens of thousands of people.

• November 2004                                                                                                                                                                                                                    In November 2004, First Voice International began working with Population Media Center (PMC) on a USAID funded project in Mali, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire. PMC developed a Bambara language radio drama series, Cesiri Tono, addressing children's rights, child trafficking and reproductive health. The programs were broadcast on the ALC and then re-broadcast by 150 community radio stations. It was determined in a post project survey that 5.5 million listeners were more knowledgable about exploitative child labor, child trafficking, gender equity and child right.                                                                                                                            

• October 2004

  The South Asian Development Channel is launched. Programs broadcast on the Asia Development Channel are developed and produced by Equal Access and its partner organizations in Nepal and Afghanistan. Equal Access has provided over 5,000 rural communities in Nepal and Afghanistan with digital satellite receivers and has formed community FM radio re-broadcasting partnerships reaching potentially over 10 million underserved people throughout both countries.

• June 2003

  First Voice International (FVI), formerly WorldSpace Foundation (WSF), is established with the mandate to become a conduit and catalyst for knowledge, experience and solutions, gathering and disseminating information on issues of pressing concern to people who have the greatest need -- the impoverished rural and urban populations of Africa and Asia. FVI builds on the existing Africa Learning Channel (ALC), which was established by WSF in 1999 with grants from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. It also further develops the Multi-Media Service (MMS) to target audiences in regions where Internet access is unavailable, unreliable or very expensive.