Routing for Communities

An audio journey tracing community connectivity around the world

In this podcast, we invite you on a journey to discover community-led experiences of people who have come up with alternatives to overcome the challenges of digital inclusion in remote, rural and urban areas across the globe. Here you can listen to the life stories of those connecting themselves while defending the fundamental rights and well-being of their communities.

During our season together, we will get inspired by stories and voices that are intertwined, connected by a common thread: building internet and communication community networks. We will learn more about the local realities and needs, and understand why a bottom-up approach is key to promoting connectivity to co-create a free, safe and worthwhile digital future leaving no one behind. Hit play and join us!

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Season 1 teaser

Teaser | 25 May 2023 | 2:47

We are happy to announce the launch of the Routing for Communities podcast on 1 June. We invite you to listen to the podcast teaser and subscribe here to get the episodes as soon as they are released.

#1 Women connecting a village

Episode 1 | 1 June 2023 | 22 minutes

In our first episode, we will discover an inspiring experience 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.

#2 The vibrancy of the Kibera residents

Episode 2 | 1 June 2023 | 20 minutes

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.

#3 Wiki Katat: The first Indigenous virtual operator in Mexico

Episode 3 | 6 July 2023 | 23 minutes

Come with us on a journey to meet the “Wiki Katat”, the first indigenous virtual operator providing internet and mobile phone services in Mexico.

#4 Amadiba Community Network and the people resisting in South Africa's Wild Coast

Episode 4 | 6 July 2023 | 22 minutes

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.

#5 Learning from communities in Argentina

Episode 5 | 3 August 2023 | 20 minutes

In this episode, you will travel to a rural area in Córdoba, Argentina. There we will get to know the Quintana Libre community network. With a strong community networks movement, in the last years, Argentina started to develop state programmes in support of community-led models for connectivity.

#6 Community networks enabling art, culture and communication in Indonesia

Episode 6 | 3 August 2023 | 21 minutes

Let's go to Indonesia together to meet the Common Room Networks Foundation, an organisation that works with art, culture, communication and new technologies. They helped build the community network in Ciptagelar Traditional Village, in West Java.

#7 Thinking about gender and race from two community-led experiences in Brazil

Episode 7 | 7 September 2023 | 22 minutes

In this episode, we share a story from Brazil. We talked to Daiane Araújo, who works on community networks projects and reflects on their intersection with gender, race and class. We also talked to Luísa Bagope, one of the creators of the project “Nodes that Bond”, which focuses on gender and feminist issues.

#8 Overcoming challenges to promote women's participation in community networks spaces in Nigeria

Episode 8 | 7 September 2023 | 20 minutes

In our eighth episode, we travel to the African continent once again! In Nigeria, we meet Harira Wakili and CITAD to learn more about their work on community networks. We also hear from Josephine Miliza about the importance of women in building enabling policy and regulation.

#9 The story of B4RN and the power of joint action

Episode 9 | 5 October 2023 | 22 minutes

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.

#10 The network of the wind from the Nasa Indigenous community in Colombia

Episode 10 | 5 October 2023 | 23 minutes

For this season’s 10th episode, you will get to know more about another story from Latin America. We’re talking about an experience in the countryside of Colombia, in an Indigenous community, where the Jxa'h Wejxia Casil Community Network is operating.

#11 Thailand’s first community network connects around 500 homes

Episode 11 | 2 November 2023 | 21 minutes

The story you’ll hear in the 11th episode of our season takes place in Thailand. We are going to learn about Professor Kanchaná Kanchanásut’s pioneering venture, which took the internet to this Southeast Asian country.

#12 Celebrating community networks making change in Kenya and around the world

Episode 12 | 2 November 2023 | 20 minutes

We’ve reached the last episode of our season together. And the story in it will inspire you, while showing how community networks are essential and possible when different people get involved.