In our ninth episode, you’ll get to know an initiative that has already connected over 7,000 homes in England’s northwestern rural areas to the internet: the Broadband for the Rural North project, more commonly known as B4RN. To tell us this story, we interviewed Chris Conder, one of B4RN’s founders who was once recognised by Queen Elizabeth II for her work in taking internet connection to rural communities.

You will also get to know Steve Song, an expert in the realm of community networks. He is a researcher and consultant on technologies that enable wider access to the internet, especially in African countries and other emerging regions. We talked to him about the challenges faced by community networks in terms of sustainability.

“Routing for Communities” is a 12-episode podcast. Here you will listen to the life stories of people who have come up with alternatives to overcome the challenges of digital inclusion in remote, rural and urban areas across the globe.

>>> Read the transcript of the episode: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org 

B4RN: https://b4rn.org.uk 

Steve Song’s blog: https://manypossibilities.net/2023/01/a-game-of-stones 

Research “Financing mechanisms for locally owned internet infrastructure”:  https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/financing-mechanisms-locally-owned-internet-infrastructure 

Join our Telegram channel: https://t.me/routingforcommunities

Credits

This podcast is an initiative from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica, produced by Rádio Tertúlia. Script and production: Vivian Fernandes. Presentation: Renata Porto. Editing and sound: Beatriz Pasqualino. Coordination: Beatriz Pasqualino and Débora Prado. Consulting board: Bruna Zanolli, Cynthia El Khoury, Daniela Bello, Flavia Fascendini, Kathleen Diga ​​​​and Nils Brock. Translation: Thiago Moyano. Illustrations: Gustavo Nascimento. Web design: Avi Nash and Cathy Chen. 

This production was supported by the “Connecting the Unconnected: Supporting community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives” project with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); and also by the project “Supporting Community-led Approaches to Addressing the Digital Divide” with support from the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme.

In our eighth episode, we will travel to the African continent once again! In Nigeria, we will meet Harira Wakili and the Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) – a non-profit organisation promoting democracy and citizenship through information and communications technologies. We will learn more about their work on community networks and gender issues.

We will also hear from Josephine Miliza, who lives in Kenya. She is the current Africa Policy coordinator at the Local Networks initiative, which aims to contribute to an enabling ecosystem for the emergence and growth of community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives.

“Routing for Communities” is a 12-episode podcast. Here you will listen to the life stories of people who have come up with alternatives to overcome the challenges of digital inclusion in remote, rural and urban areas across the globe.

>>> Read the transcript of the episode: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org 

CITAD: https://www.citad.org 

SPACE programme: https://www.apc.org/en/news/space-mentorship-programme-addressing-gendered-experiences-access-policy-and-regulation 

Join our Telegram channel: https://t.me/routingforcommunities

Credits

This podcast is an initiative from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica, produced by Rádio Tertúlia. Script and production: Vivian Fernandes. Presentation: Renata Porto. Editing: Beatriz Pasqualino. Sound: Lua Gatinoni. Coordination: Beatriz Pasqualino and Débora Prado. Consulting Board: Bruna Zanolli, Cynthia El Khoury, Daniela Bello, Flavia Fascendini, Kathleen Diga ​​​​and Nils Brock. Translation: Thiago Moyano. Illustrations: Gustavo Nascimento. Webdesign: Avi Nash and Cathy Chen. 

This production was supported by the “Connecting the Unconnected: Supporting community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives” project with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); and also by the project “Supporting Community-led Approaches to Addressing the Digital Divide” with support from the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme.

Welcome to Brazil! In the seventh episode of our season, we share a story from São Paulo, the largest city by population in the country and South America. We talked to Daiane Araújo and learned more about her experience at “Casa dos Meninos”, an initiative working on information and communication technologies with the youth on the city outskirts. She works on community networks projects and reflects on their intersection with gender, race and class.

We also traveled to a small Brazilian town called Monteiro Lobato, where Luísa Bagope lives. She is one of the creators of the project “Nodes that Bond”, which focuses on gender and feminist issues. 

“Routing for Communities” is a 12-episode podcast. Here you will be able to listen to the life stories of people connecting themselves while defending the rights and well-being of their communities.

>>> Read the transcript of the episode: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org 

Casa dos Meninos: https://www.casadosmeninos.org.br 

Nós por Nós: https://portalsemporteiras.github.io/nos-por-nos 

Their book about the women circles methodology: https://portalsemporteiras.github.io/en/assets/documentos/book-nodes-that-bond.pdf 

Article on popular education written by Daiane Araújo:

https://www.genderit.org/feminist-talk/contribution-bell-hooks-and-paulo-freire-construction-community-networks

Join our Telegram channel: https://t.me/routingforcommunities

Credits

This podcast is an initiative from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica, produced by Rádio Tertúlia. Script, production and voiceover: Vivian Fernandes. Presentation: Renata Porto. Editing and voiceover: Beatriz Pasqualino. Sound: Lua Gatinoni. Coordination: Beatriz Pasqualino and Débora Prado. Consulting Board: Bruna Zanolli, Cynthia El Khoury, Daniela Bello, Flavia Fascendini, Kathleen Diga ​​​​and Nils Brock. Translation: Thiago Moyano. Illustrations: Gustavo Nascimento. Webdesign: Avi Nash and Cathy Chen. 

This production was supported by the “Connecting the Unconnected: Supporting community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives” project with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); and also by the project “Supporting Community-led Approaches to Addressing the Digital Divide” with support from the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme.

Let's go to Indonesia together to meet the Common Room Networks Foundation and its co-founder Gustaff Iskandar. This is a project that works with art, culture, communication and new technologies. Gustaff helped build the community network in Ciptagelar Traditional Village, in West Java. According to him, there are around 12,000 villages that are still disconnected in Indonesia, and not only from internet access – more than half of them still don't have any adequate source of electricity.

In this episode, we also travel to Australia. There, we spoke with Carlos Rey-Moreno, from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). He's one of the coordinators of the Local Networks initiative and works to promote enabling policy and regulation for community-led communications models..

“Routing for Communities” is a 12-episode podcast. Here you will be able to listen to the life stories of people who build inspiring community-led projects to connect the third of humankind that is still living offline. 

>>> Read the transcript of the episode: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org/ 

Common Room: https://commonroom.info

Credits

This podcast is an initiative from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica, produced by Rádio Tertúlia. Script and production: Vivian Fernandes. Presentation: Renata Porto. Editing: Beatriz Pasqualino. Sound: Lua Gatinoni. Coordination: Beatriz Pasqualino and Débora Prado. Consulting Board: Bruna Zanolli, Cynthia El Khoury, Daniela Bello, Flavia Fascendini, Kathleen Diga ​​​​and Nils Brock. Translation: Marcio Miranda. Illustrations: Gustavo Nascimento. Webdesign: Avi Nash and Cathy Chen. 

This production was supported by the “Connecting the Unconnected: Supporting community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives” project with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); and also by the project “Supporting Community-led Approaches to Addressing the Digital Divide” with support from the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme.

In this episode you will travel to a rural area in Córdoba, Argentina.There we will get to know the Quintana Libre initiative. It’s a community network in the township of José de la Quintana, which was developed with the local community by an organisation called AlterMundi. For this story, we talked to Jessica Giudice, a Quintana Libre member and AlterMundi co-founder.

Also in this episode, we talked to Natalia Vinelli, who is also in Argentina, but based in the country's capital city of Buenos Aires. She is an activist in social communication and deputy director of Special Projects at ENACOM – the country’s regulation authority for communication media and telecommunications.

In the last years, Argentina started to develop state programmes to guarantee access to the internet. Through groundbreaking policies, it was possible to considerably increase the number of Argentine community networks.

“Routing for Communities” is a twelve-episode podcast. Here you will be able to listen to the life stories of people who build inspiring community-led projects to connect the third of humankind that is still living offline. 

>>> Read the transcript of the episode: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org/ 

Altermundi: https://altermundi.net

Enacom: https://www.enacom.gob.ar 

Credits

This podcast is an initiative from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica, produced by Rádio Tertúlia. Script, production and voiceover: Vivian Fernandes. Presentation: Renata Porto. Editing and voiceover: Beatriz Pasqualino. Sound: Lua Gatinoni. Coordination: Beatriz Pasqualino and Débora Prado. Consulting Board: Bruna Zanolli, Cynthia El Khoury, Daniela Bello, Flavia Fascendini, Kathleen Diga ​​​​and Nils Brock. Translation: Thiago Moyano. Illustrations: Gustavo Nascimento. Webdesign: Avi Nash and Cathy Chen. 

This production was supported by the “Connecting the Unconnected: Supporting community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives” project with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); and also by the project “Supporting Community-led Approaches to Addressing the Digital Divide” with support from the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme.

In this episode you will get to know the Amadiba Community Network, a project that has been strengthening the community's fight to defend their land, the coast of their country and their people, through access to the internet. Guiding us on this journey is Lungelo Mtwa, from Pondoland, a region on the coast of South Africa bathed by the Indian Ocean. Also in this episode, we interviewed Mike Jensen, an internet pioneer working at the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). We’ll talk about ideas for thinking about connectivity and community networks.

“Routing for Communities” is a twelve-episode podcast. Here you are going to listen to life stories of those who build innovative and bold community-led projects to connect the third of humankind that is still living offline. 

>>> Read the transcript of the episode: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org/ 

Credits

This podcast is an initiative from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica, produced by Rádio Tertúlia. Script and production: Vivian Fernandes. Presentation: Renata Porto. Editing: Beatriz Pasqualino. Sound: Lua Gatinoni. Coordination: Beatriz Pasqualino and Débora Prado. Consulting Board: Bruna Zanolli, Cynthia El Khoury, Daniela Bello, Flavia Fascendini, Kathleen Diga ​​​​and Nils Brock. Translation: Marcio Miranda. Illustrations: Gustavo Nascimento. Webdesign: Avi Nash and Cathy Chen. 

This production was supported by the “Connecting the Unconnected: Supporting community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives” project with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); and also by the project “Supporting Community-led Approaches to Addressing the Digital Divide” with support from the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme.

Come with us on a journey to meet the “Wiki Katat”, the first indigenous virtual operator providing internet and mobile phone services in Mexico. In this episode, you will get to know Flor Lino, who is part of the Wiki Katat and also of a community indigenous radio station in the country. You will also meet Lilian Chamorro, who works in many organisations linked to the topic of community networks in Latin America. 

“Routing for Communities” is a twelve-episode podcast that presents community-led experiences that have come up with solutions to overcome the challenges of digital inclusion in remote, rural, and urban areas across the globe. 

>>> Read the transcript of the episode: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org/ 

>>>> Wiki Katat: https://wikikatat.mx

Credits

This podcast is an initiative from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica, produced by Rádio Tertúlia. Script, and production and voice-over support: Vivian Fernandes. Presentation: Renata Porto. Editing and voice-over support: Beatriz Pasqualino. Sound: Lua Gatinoni. Coordination: Beatriz Pasqualino and Débora Prado. Consulting Board: Bruna Zanolli, Cynthia El Khoury, Daniela Bello, Flavia Fascendini, Kathleen Diga ​​​​and Nils Brock. Translation: Thiago Moyano. Illustrations: Gustavo Nascimento. Webdesign: Avi Nash and Cathy Chen. 

This production was supported by the “Connecting the Unconnected: Supporting community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives” project with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); and also by the project “Supporting Community-led Approaches to Addressing the Digital Divide” with support from the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme.

Our second episode takes us on a trip to Kenya to visit TunapandaNET, an initiative that combines digital networks with community-led action to enable communication, education and health in Kibera, the biggest slum in Africa. In order to tell you this story, our team has talked to Risper Akinyi Arose, who works in many projects of digital inclusion and communication there. We also talked to Peter Bloom, from Rhizomatica. He’ll help us understand the processes that mobilize internet and intranet community networks across the globe. Everything in order to guarantee autonomy and connectivity in regions where the population is offline because telecom corporations do not see profitability in such communities, ignoring local demands, commonly following the trend of what many governments also do.

>>> Read the transcript of the episode: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org/ 

Credits

This podcast is an initiative from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica, produced by Rádio Tertúlia. Script and production: Vivian Fernandes. Presentation: Renata Porto. Editing and voice-over support: Beatriz Pasqualino. Sound: Lua Gatinoni. Coordination: Beatriz Pasqualino and Débora Prado. Consulting Board: Bruna Zanolli, Cynthia El Khoury, Daniela Bello, Flavia Fascendini, Kathleen Diga ​​​​and Nils Brock. Illustrations: Gustavo Nascimento. Webdesign: Avi Nash and Cathy Chen. 

This production was supported by the “Connecting the Unconnected: Supporting community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives” project with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); and also by the project “Supporting Community-led Approaches to Addressing the Digital Divide” with support from the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme.

Come with us on a journey to meet community-led experiences that have come up with solutions to overcome the challenges of digital inclusion in remote, rural, and urban areas across the globe. In this first episode, we will tell you about an experience straight from South Africa: the Mamaila Community Network, which is connecting a rural area that had been ignored by major communications providers, while building digital skills. Who tells us more about this initiative is Kgopotso Magoro. And you´ll also meet Claire Milne, from the UK, a retired researcher who has a vast knowledge in the area of telecom policies around the world.

>>> Read the transcript of the episode: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org/ 

Credits

This podcast is an initiative from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica, produced by Rádio Tertúlia. Script and production: Vivian Fernandes. Presentation: Renata Porto. Editing and voice-over support: Beatriz Pasqualino. Sound: Lua Gatinoni. Coordination: Beatriz Pasqualino and Débora Prado. Consulting Board: Bruna Zanolli, Cynthia El Khoury, Daniela Bello, Flavia Fascendini, Kathleen Diga ​​​​and Nils Brock. Illustrations: Gustavo Nascimento. Webdesign: Avi Nash and Cathy Chen. 

This production was supported by the “Connecting the Unconnected: Supporting community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives” project with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); and also by the project “Supporting Community-led Approaches to Addressing the Digital Divide” with support from the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme.

This twelve-episode season podcast is a journey to meet community-led experiences that have come up with solutions to overcome the challenges of digital inclusion in remote, rural, and urban areas across the globe. Here you are going to meet life stories of those who build innovative and bold community-led projects to connect the third of human kind that is still living offline, and you´ll learn more about initiatives in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. We'll talk about the local realities and needs and discuss why a bottom-up approach is key to promote connectivity oriented to ensure social, environmental and gender justice, as well as an open, free and secure digital future leaving no one behind.

This is the podcast of the Local Networks initiative, a collective effort led by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica.

Production: Rádio Tertúlia. Script and production: Vivian Fernandes. Presentation: Renata Porto. Editing and voice-over support: Beatriz Pasqualino. Sound: Lua Gatinoni. Coordination: Beatriz Pasqualino and Débora Prado. Consulting Board: Flavia Fascendini, Kathleen Diga, Cynthia El Khoury, Bruna Zanolli, Nils Brock and Daniela Bello. Illustrations: Gustavo Nascimento. Webdesign: Cathy Chen and Avi Nash.

Website: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org