Radio E-mail Communication ,proven in the field

Radio E-mail Communication, a reliable technology.

Recently in Africa, "Medical teams International" found that the cell system had failed and was down for several days during a site visit in April 2008.Without communication it would have been impossible for them to organise.

Simply ...communications makes things possible.

A copy of a message sent from a relieved REMCU user to "Medical teams International"


Sorry, we cannot talk over the cell phone, the network system is down. It has been like this since last week. Please be prepared for poor communication with the rest of the world when you get here. However, it is a blessing to have radio e-mail! Otherwise, with the network down we would not be able to communicate at all.

African Expedition!

A special notice from the REMCU team concerning the latest African Expedition!




"Finally! We're Going back to Zambia!

We've decided to take a leap of faith and commit to going back to Zambia in mid August to upgrade and expand our REM system.We don't yet have our budget fully funded, but we feel strongly that we must go during the current dry season.

As plans now stand, Nzola & Rob will leave August 14th, and be away 5, 6, or 7 weeks, depending on how much more funds come in between now and then.

Help us install more systems at medical clinics and high schools!
Please visit the Donations page and donate to REMCU via
http://www.CanadaHelps.org

Sincerely, - Nzola, Rob & Trever

1st Annual REMCU Flea Market in Review !

1st Annual REMCU Flea Market Summary:
In the last couple of months an official club has formed at Schneider Electric calling themselves the "REMCU Supporters." They were instrumental in providing volunteer effort for the Gospel Choir benefit concert, and in their first attempt at a fund-raiser they ran with a benefit flea market - "Sell your Junk from your Trunk!"

Their plan was to "borrow" the Schneider Electric parking lot, and rent the parking spaces to folks with stuff to sell for those who do not want to go to the effort of running their own garage sale, or who live in an apartment and can not have a garage sale, etc.

For additional revenue the REMCU Supporters decided to run a concession, rent tables, and try to sell some donated books, old CRT computer monitors, and fresh Level Ground coffee from the fair trade coffee organization.

The REMCU directors decided this might be a great opportunity to demonstrate radio email to the public too.

Great effort was made to advertise the sale. Flyers were put up around the three closest communities (Keating, Brentwood Bay , Central Saanich ), email chains started, ads put in the local paper and the three most popular free ad web sites, and even the very popular local radio announcer, Ed Bain of 100.3 The Q, agreed to spread the word.

Unfortunately, the weather forecasters kept changing their minds on what Saturday April 19 would be like, and then it SNOWED!! In Victoria , in April, it snowed. Well, we had to postpone. So volunteers went around all three communities and updated the flyers, called The Q and got the word out again.

Saturday April 26th was beautiful, warm and sunny! We had a few less sellers than originally scheduled, but the buyers kept coming and coming. Buyers, sellers and volunteers alike had a great time.

The food concession was the big money maker (~$325), followed by stall/table rentals (~$275), and books (~$100). On the flip side, nobody wanted a CRT (not a shock), and Level Ground coffee did not sell well at all (a shock, 85 bags left over).

The live demonstration went well and many people emailed themselves over the radio waves from the Schneider parking lot. Donations related to the event are still coming in; more than $200 thus far.

REMCU really wants to thank everyone who came out - those who came to volunteer, sell, buy, and/or check out the demo. Special thanks to Schneider Electric for their continued support, and to The Q for helping to get the word out.

On a last note, we have lots of coffee for sale! If you would like to support us by buying some please email Trever.Blair@remcu.org and we can make arrangements to get you as much as you want! :)

Start planning now to "Sell your Junk from your Trunk" again next year!

Benefit Concert follow up

Thank you for all that attended the March 15th "Eric Dozier and the One Human Family Gospel Choir Benefit Concert" at Lambrick Park Church.

The wildly supportive audience and generous donations made the event an enjoyable success for all those involved.Everyone involved or participated ;we thank you greatly for your continued support!

The event generated over $3000 !
$1,655 net from ticket sales
- $1,267 from donations
- $238 net profit from coffee sales that night
- $54 from sales of "One Human Family Choir" CDs

Many people enthusiastically asked when the next event would be held so we look forward to another OHF benefit concert as soon as possible!

A great thanks to all those that attended and participated ; we look forward to your continued interest !

REMCU Benefit Concert - Saturday, 15-March

One Human Family Gospel Choir will present a concert at Lambrick Park Church, Saturday, 15-March at 7:00 PM.

This will be an exciting, uplifting evening; with all proceeds going to REMCU!

See Poster below for ticket information.

2007 In Review

Dear Donors,

Thank you for your generous contributions in 2007. You helped sustain our communications network in Africa, and prepare for network growth and improvements in 2008 and beyond. For your interest, here is a brief update of 2007 REMCU results.

The network in Africa is now more stable than ever, and is experiencing consistent daily traffic. Partly this is due to better equipment we were able to install this year, but this is also in large part due to the staff of our partner organization, the Zambia Flying Doctor Service (ZFDS). They are becoming very familiar with how to support the system, and regularly monitor its status.

As one might anticipate, there is quite a variation in use of the system - some remote sites are using it daily and receiving great value; some have left their system idle. We are working with ZFDS to encourage the low use sites to take advantage of the system, and trying to understand how we can make this tool more valuable for them.

On the technology front, we have made some inroads that will improve the offering we can deliver to the remote communities. We continue to focus on reliability and total cost of ownership. During our upcoming 2008 trip we plan to implement some of the new alternatives. We are very confident in them because we have tested them in our now-very-well-equipped development/test facility in Victoria, and across the continent of North America with new REMCU supporters.

Humanitarian communications opportunities continue to far out number our ability to assist. Throughout 2007 we had many inquiries from other organizations that were hoping we could help. We are working with a few that we feel we are a good match to best collaborate with at this time, but we are keen on growing our capacity to become more responsive.

2007 was our first full year as a stand-alone registered charity in Canada. There was a lot of work just to run the organization and meet our legal/fiscal requirements, and a lot to learn in the process. Thanks to the help of friends, family and new partners we have a foundation for future success and efficiency.

Thank you again for your support! Please visit our web site (www.remcu.org), and particularly the “blog” (web log); we will be using this more as we start to achieve more milestones in 2008. We are very excited about what is possible to achieve; with your continued support we most surely will increase the positive impact we are having!

Sincerely,

Nzola Swasisa, Rob Porter, Trever Blair

REMCU 5 year visions - In 2013:

We have installed over 150 remote e-mail nodes since Jan 2008. We operate 3 HF-server hubs. We have full time administrators in Africa, South America and South Pacific that provide training and tier-2 field support. In Victoria, we provide tier-3 technical support. For each hub we have trained “super-users” to provide a minimum of tier-1 support to the e-mail nodes associated.

We are partnered with 4 or more well known humanitarian groups such as Operation Eyesight or Charity Help International, whose efforts directly or indirectly support the Millennium Development Goals. We receive funding from them, install systems for them, and share best practices for assisting the developing world.

We have secured stable “maintenance funding” which allows us to continue to provide Radio-E-Mail support and administration free of charge to our remote e-mail nodes.

Also since Jan 2008, we have helped over 10 other humanitarian groups (whose efforts directly or indirectly support Millennium Development Goals) with the installation of their own email systems. We have done this by providing technical and financial consulting, including: installation guides, trouble shooting guides, and bills of material. We provide tier-3 technical support for them and have trained them to provide tier-2 technical support for their clients.

We have a strong technical team that is very well connected and well respected in the humanitarian communications community. The factors that drive their application research and development are:

effectiveness, including: reliability and meeting the needs of the developing communities,

total cost of ownership, including: installation, maintenance and ease of use.

We have strong support teams that, among all the statutory non-for-profit management requirements, are able to confidently find and maintain reliable sources of funding for growing and maintaining the client email systems, and further REMCU’s ability to meet the communication needs of developing communities.

We have a strong leadership team that has continued to recruit great people, set new stretch goals, and keep the REMCU organization motivated and moving forward toward these goals.

Note: Tier-1 support: basic user-training to send e-mail, & minimal trouble shooting ability.

Tier-2 support: a superset of tier-1 with added ability to trouble shoot common technical problems. Tier-3: a superset of tier-2 with additional mandate to troubleshoot any problem, prioritized by overall up-time metrics.

Message received from Zambia Flying Doctor Service Radio-E-Mail
administrator (comments in parentheses added by REMCU for clarity):

Dear REMCU,

Today is 5th February, 2008 on Tuesday at 08:34 hrs in the morning. Here in the Copperbelt (province in north-central Zambia) the rain is pouring almost every day since January up to date. Also the whole country is receiving heavy downpour resulting in floods in most areas. Most people have been made homeless because their houses have collapsed due to heavy rains.

Thanks,

Charles Kasonde

ZFDS, Ndola, Zambia.

CBC Radio One Interview with Nzola Swasisa

Today, CBC Radio One Victoria, BC, aired an interview of Nzola Swasisa by Jeff Weaver. The occasion is the receipt by Nzola of an e-mail message from Perpetua Alfazema (who lived in Victoria for 20 years), who has returned to Africa to help her people. Perpetua describes the hardships endured by the people of Sena, caused by the flooding of the Zambezi River. Although totally cut off from the rest of the world, She is able to communicate with the rest of the world through e-mail via 2-way HF-Radio using a system installed and maintained by REMCU.

REMCU wants you to know that we are "ready to go" with the next expansion of Radio-E-Mail in Zambia. We need "the last $5,000" to complete our fundraising to allow us to proceed. Please help us with a tax-receipted charitable donation. Please utilize our "online donation" capability at www.remcu.org.

Thank you, - Rob Porter

------- Here is Perpetua's e-mail message -------
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 8:16 AM
Subject: Re: floods

Hello all,

Floods.

The road from Sena to Caia is flooded, it has not been passable for the last three weeks. From Sena to Caia is about 60 km. However, the most serious floods are taking place at Checha, only 14 km from Sena. The only way to get to Caia right now is by boat.

Deep water.

In most parts the water is very deep and moving fast. Yesterday a staff from Kuwangisana was coming from Murraça to visit a patient. When he arrived at Checha there was no boat. Then he decided to cross the water on foot. While crossing he heard sounds like bird's in the water, since the water was very brown and bubbling he could not tell what sound it was. As he prodded along, he saw two water cobras raised their heads...He got very scared, and walked very carefully until he made it to the dry land.

Farm

Kuwangisana two hectors food farm is covered by water, losing all the ha maize crops, beans, pumpkins, okra, cucumbers, watermelons and sesame to the flood. Last night a hippopotamus entered into our field and helped himself/herself with whatever looked green and tasty. During the day, from far we watched the young hippo basking in the sun.

Well.

Kuwangisana well is also underwater. When the floods started people used to go to Kuwangisana well to catch cat fish. Now they have stopped going there because there is a crocodile roaming around in the flood waters in the farm.

Forcast.

The water level is overwhelming and yet the prevision is that its still going to be worse! Right now it is not raining but it rained heavy last week. Just to let you, the flood waters are not caused by rain but due to the opening of the Cahoras Bassa dams in Tete, and other dams in the neighboring countries.

Weather

This week's weather is extremely hot, mosquitoes, crickets and grasshopper are in full gear. However, the crickets, grasshoppers are very helpful to most people because they are been used as food. At the market the food is very expensive and not a great variety to choice from.

Health

Praise to the Lord there has not been very serious cases of cholera reported yet. However, many people right now are suffering from Malaria, eye infection and diarrhoea.

Warning

Today, I attended a community meeting here in Sena and the police warned everyone to avoid walking in the waters because of crocodiles, snakes, hippopotamus and other unknown creatures that are running loose in search of food.

I will stop there for now,

Blessing, Perpetua