DW recently completed a contest to get users to submit ideas for new content for its educational series Learning by Ear. The feedback was astounding – and now the winners are in. The jury has now come up with a list of the 10 best, incuding the winner from Togo. Bouloufèi Bèwèzima and a group from the club “A nous la planète” wrote a story called “A long way home” about two trafficked boys who undertake an exhausting march to rejoin their family.

You can find a full list of winners here.

Naser Shrouf, DW’s Head of Distribution Africa/ Middle East, recently conducted an interview with the Nieman Journalism Lab about the fastest-growing mobile market on the planet: Africa. DW sees a world of opportunities there to expand the reach of its programming and especially for its educational series Learning by Ear. Several partnerships with mobile providers have already been signed and DW is looking for more.

DW is using over-the-phone voice technology to deliver news. No Internet access necessary, customers just need to dial a number to access Learing by Ear content. The series covers everything from health and hygiene to politics, the economy, the environment and social issues.

Also, if you are interested in learning more about who we work with locally, check out this article from All Africa. And here is another interview with Tanzania’s Daily News about the Learning by Ear program.

Deutsche Welle (DW) is using a contest to develop a new kind of user-generated content for its award-winning radio series Learning by Ear. From now until June 30, young listeners in Africa will be able to submit their story ideas for a chance at having one of them produced and broadcast, as well as being turned into a community play.

So far, Learning by Ear has told the stories of many young Africans, like Jon-athan who dreamt of becoming one of the most successful soccer players in the world. Or 16-year-old Desirée who took care of her little brother follow-ing her mother’s death.

Now, Germany’s international broadcaster wants their listeners in Africa to share the most important lessons they’ve learned in life, or respond about the topics they want to hear more about in the future. The winning story will be turned into a new Learning by Ear series and adapted for the stage in the winner’s hometown, with the winning group in the production. Other prizes include cameras, a CD player plus a Learning by Ear fan package including t-shirts, CDs and much more.

Entries will be accepted until June 30, 2012 and winners will be selected shortly thereafter. The contest is open to young people under the age of 25 and groups need to be made up of at least five people. All participants must be from an African country.

Entries should include a written story no longer than one page; a list of the group members including their names and ages; and a photo of the entire group. All entries should be sent to lbe@dw.de.

Find out more about Learning by Ear or go to the contest website.

Africa
DW’s sales team has once again made inroads in Africa. France Greber, Distribution Representative for Africa, and Thomas Mösch, from the DW’s Africa service, recently made a trip to Cameroon and returned with nine new partners. The community radio stations that have signed agreements will begin broadcasting DW’s radio programming this year – including programming in French and Hausa, as well as the new English program “Africalink”. With a total of 20 radio, three TV and two online partners, DW is now available nationwide in Cameroon.

Americas
DW continues to gain ground in the United States – it has now included in several new cable systems across the country with Comcast. These include Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, making it available to more than 3 million Comcast subscribers. DW was previously only available in the Comcast systems in Colorado, Central California, San Francisco Bay Area and Southern Florida. In addition, Cox Communications has made DW available to its 600,000 subscribers in Virginia.

Asia
DW has expanded its partnership with the largest commercial station in Bangladesh, Ekushey TV (ETV). The broadcaster will include business features and reports from DW’S Bengali service.

DW is now broadcasting its television program to all of the Palau islands in the Pacific Ocean, after signing an agreement with the Palau National Communication Corporation PNCC. And in Indonesia, Mega Media MMI is the new nationwide DTH partner. Viewers will be able to receive DW-TV using their DTH satellite dish.

Europe
DW’S television magazine Eurobox is now being broadcast in Moldova. The coproduction with Teleradio Moldova (TRM) is shown on Saturdays, and rebroadcast again the following week. This is just a continuation of DW’s partnership with TRM – the station has been broadcasting a range of DW programming with subtitles in Romanian since 2004.

The IPTV provider HOL TV has included DW programming into its line-up. HOL TV is the first provider in Greece with HDTV and VoD. DW has also signed a partnership with the leading telecommunications provider in Bulgaria. VIVACOM has included DW-TV into its lineup and is broadcasting it via IPTV as well.