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West African boys harvesting vegetables

The Furthest Reaches of Benin
Songhai’s headquarters is in Porto Novo, the heart of Benin’s political capital in the southern part of the country. Young farmers and entrepreneurs come from all over the continent to work on the Songhai farm, and they take their experience home to share with their communities.

But that’s not enough for Father Nzamujo, who wants Songhai’s messages to reach the most remote regions of Benin.

Communication is practically nonexistent with far-flung villages in the north of the country, where most of the population resides and where even telephones are rare. So Songhai has decided to take two important steps to bring the mountain, so to speak, to the people. First, two new Songhai centers are opening in 1999, one in Savalou to cover the center of the country, and another in Parakou, the gateway to the north.

Second, all three Songhai sites will host, manage and operate community networking service centers (CNSCs), where computers will enable audio, video and text communication via intranet, email and the internet, linking Songhai sites with each other and with the world at large.

Connectivity sans infrastructure? To compensate for the poor electricity and telecommunications in the country, Songhai’s CNSCs will use solar power and high frequency microwave links to run the computers and high frequency digital radio technology to ensure reliable and fast communication links. In addition to achieving a quality and speed of transmission that is not possible using local telephone lines, this technology will greatly reduce operating costs. It also will enable Porto Novo, where external connectivity is better, to serve as a relay center for connectivity from the more remote locations of Parakou and Savalou.