Viewfinder: Video Helps the World's Poor

How can video help achieve the UN's Millennium Development Goals? The eight MDGs form a blueprint agreed to by all the world's countries and leading development institutions. Goals range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by 2015.

Over one billion people (one-sixth of the earth's population) live on less than $1 per day. Each day, more than 20,000 people die because of extreme poverty. While saddening, there is hope. Soon, you may be able to apply your passion for video to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

Camcorders, computers, televisions and video projectors help train teachers in remote parts of India. In Central America in the late 1970s, a program of interactive radio instruction (IRI) used audiotape recorders and FM radios in primary school education. Today, IRI is worldwide, and the audio recording and editing are done with computers. In early 2007, a small test with teachers in Northern Zambia used portable media players (PMPs) like iPods for the IRI audio programs. PMPs gave the teachers control over the presentation. Every class in Zambia must listen to the same lesson at the same hour on the same day with radio-delivered audio lessons. However, in an accelerated class, the students can listen to more advanced lessons and skip ahead of those listening via radio.