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When the Freeplay Foundation designed the Lifeline Radio they chose not to re-invent the wheel.

Instead focusing on the design of a rugged multiband portable - in appearance and operation a radio like any other. Building on the infrastructure and experience of eighty years of educational broadcasting.

It was and is a project that would rank zero for ideological or political correctness. But the radios are out there and the program is on track and on budget.

"like stealing a post office truck"

It's not stealing. Isn't this more like BUYING a used, surplus truck from the postal service? You give someone a laptop-- what's wrong with them selling the laptop?

What would be the disadvantage in selling these laptops to people in wealthy nations as a commodity? That is precisely what the Freeplay Foundation does with their "Lifeline Radio", which is a robust, windup/solar powered, AM/FM/SW radio designed for people who live in areas without power. You can buy one radio through CCrane and they'll donate a second one to someone in need.

Keep modding parent up. This method he outlined is how http://www.freeplayfoundation.org/ has been giving away crank-powered shortwave radios to kids in poor countries to listen to educational shortwave broadcasts for several years now.

Don't forget a radio. From what I hear the Freeplay lifeline radios are great.
They do not require any batteries, picks up AM, FM, and Shortwave, designed to withstand "harsh conditions", and is powered by solar and/or wind-up. That and if you purchase one they automatically donate another to the Freeplay Foundation to help orphaned children in Africa.

Next step up would be to have a ham license so you could talk back. Although...in an emergency I'm not sure how strict the FCC would be if you didn't have one.

Freeplay still makes an AM/FM/SW1/SW2 windup & solar powered (no battery) radio, but it's mostly intended for rural African communities. But you can buy one and donate a second radio for the Freeplay Foundation.

It's the size of a loaf of bread, and it's ugly, but it's not really aimed for American gageteers.

maybe contact these guys see if they have any protypes to test out

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

there's also

http://www.freeplayfoundation.org/

I own two of their radios, great stuff! Multiband, no batteries required

And maybe visit a few solar dealers, see if you can get some donated stuff, panel or two, charge controller, etc. snag a truck battery once you are there.

Oh ya, good water filter! I use a royal berkefield with the "black berky" filter elements.

~The wind up radio? Trevor Bayliss developed it at his own cost, and Christopher Staines and South African entrepreneur Rory Stear put up the finance to make production a reality. Previously, people had to spend more on batteries than they did on the radio. Batteries are more expensive and less reliable in rural Africa than they are in the rich parts of the world.

Are they any use? Read this and make your mind up. But I'd say they're a damn sight more useful to many more people than a 3G phone.

ok, this project is really kewl ;-)

i read a while ago about a guy who was building wind-up flashlights, for everywhere, and things like wind-up radios and televisions for places like rural africa. no batteries! (except internal lithium rechargeable? can a capacitor handle the charge storage? i dunno.) the radio just needs a few cranks every now and then and it will pipe out broadcasts for a few hours before needing a new crank. here's a link i found.

so we have all these failed (business-wise) iridium satellites flying around and other satellite networks with a few extra bandwidths here and there that might be persuaded to have something alloted from them for this project.

so make a pda that has a handcrank, uplinks to a satellite, and is basically nothing but a glorified Instant Messenging App with some sort of Babelfish (the fish!) built in that translates whatever native language is involved into a neutral heuristic. then that xml heuristic is uplinked via satellite, downloaded to a recipient, and retranslated into whatever language the recipient is using on their pda.

i'm certain that would be kewl enough for these kids to take home with them after a few days, get hooked on, and use as long as the handcrank still works, the supposed lithium batteries don't bleed away, the ruggedized case survives kid-friendly drops and crunches and unfriendly monsoons and drops in streams and drainage ditches, and the satellites stay in orbit and their bandwidth backers stay interested in the program.

i think that your biggest challenge, whatever tech you implement, will be keeping them interested. it would be a shame to blow all that dough on something that stops working after a few days or the kids just plain lose interest in because of complexity or lack of compelling features.

ok, kind of ambitious, but it sounds like you have some money to burn ;-) i was thinking illiteracy would be a problem, but not really: can you think of a better motivator for a rural poor kid to get reading or what? good luck! look forward to reading about how it is all received on slashdot in 2005 ;-)