How do they get tech support?
This is something I've been giving some thought to for some time and I don't think I'm any clearer about it now than I was when I started. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program.
It's an idea started by a computer geek based on concepts and ideas that have been around for some time, according to their website. Make a cheap, robust and reliable computer that you can distribute to the children of the developing world in an effort to improve their overall educational standards and thus their lot in life. Nice idea. Laudable. Education as a potential solution to a large number of the world's problems is something that I've believed in for as long as I can remember thinking about those problems. So why does it feel slightly off to me?
When you read about the difficulties that a huge proportion of the world's population have in getting, say, clean water, the idea of giving children in these conditions a computer seems a little bit like offering the child with his finger in the dyke wall a coat 'in case it gets cold tonight'. He'll probably appreciate it, but he has more fundumental problems to worry about. What is the point of providing these children with a more sophisticated education if before they reach puberty, they're pressed into manual labour making bricks or begging on the street?
I don't want to sound like a pessimist, far from it, and I understand that these people are trying to offer help to the world's most vulnerable people in the best way they know how, with the skills that they have to offer. It just seems like they're aim is a little off. I think the love affair that the West has with computing and digital technology (and I won't even start with my distaste for the use of the word 'technology' to exclusively refer to the computing and communication industries, as if nothing technical had existed before the advent of the silicon age) has skewed perspectives a little when it comes to trying to aid the less fortunate. The explosive rise of mobile telephony in India, for example, has not helped the millions of poor children in Kerala state alone who never recieve a secondary education.
Maybe I missing some vital part of the overall picture here, I freely admit that I haven't had time yet to read the full website. And if the title of this post is a little flippant, is mostly because the plight of these kids seems so terrible that I have a tough time dealing with it head on. I have friends who have done just that and their stories fill me with a kind of crawling horror at the privations of real poverty (as opposed to relative kind that most people complain about in Australia) that it makes me slightly distainful of the the whole idea of OLPC.
Or perhaps I just need to be thankful that there are some people out there who are willing to do something, anything to improve the lot of those who cannot help themselves.
It's an idea started by a computer geek based on concepts and ideas that have been around for some time, according to their website. Make a cheap, robust and reliable computer that you can distribute to the children of the developing world in an effort to improve their overall educational standards and thus their lot in life. Nice idea. Laudable. Education as a potential solution to a large number of the world's problems is something that I've believed in for as long as I can remember thinking about those problems. So why does it feel slightly off to me?
When you read about the difficulties that a huge proportion of the world's population have in getting, say, clean water, the idea of giving children in these conditions a computer seems a little bit like offering the child with his finger in the dyke wall a coat 'in case it gets cold tonight'. He'll probably appreciate it, but he has more fundumental problems to worry about. What is the point of providing these children with a more sophisticated education if before they reach puberty, they're pressed into manual labour making bricks or begging on the street?
I don't want to sound like a pessimist, far from it, and I understand that these people are trying to offer help to the world's most vulnerable people in the best way they know how, with the skills that they have to offer. It just seems like they're aim is a little off. I think the love affair that the West has with computing and digital technology (and I won't even start with my distaste for the use of the word 'technology' to exclusively refer to the computing and communication industries, as if nothing technical had existed before the advent of the silicon age) has skewed perspectives a little when it comes to trying to aid the less fortunate. The explosive rise of mobile telephony in India, for example, has not helped the millions of poor children in Kerala state alone who never recieve a secondary education.
Maybe I missing some vital part of the overall picture here, I freely admit that I haven't had time yet to read the full website. And if the title of this post is a little flippant, is mostly because the plight of these kids seems so terrible that I have a tough time dealing with it head on. I have friends who have done just that and their stories fill me with a kind of crawling horror at the privations of real poverty (as opposed to relative kind that most people complain about in Australia) that it makes me slightly distainful of the the whole idea of OLPC.
Or perhaps I just need to be thankful that there are some people out there who are willing to do something, anything to improve the lot of those who cannot help themselves.
posted by David Brennan + Anne Swart at 6:52 pm
2 Comments:
Hi, David
I live in Rio de Janeiro, very near those endangered children and I want to tell some stories about them. Some of this children I know personally, some I know from TV programs.
Maria lives at Jequitinhonha valley, their parents have not any kind of income, she eats whatever their parents manage to harvest from a parched soil. But next year the government will pay her family a grant of 50$ a month if they can prove that Maria will be attending school the whole year.
Tiago lives at poor region in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. His hard working parents can hardly make 300$ a month. But they have spared 50$/month for a whole year to buy a desktop computer. He has now internet access and do his homework assignments searching information on the web.
Paulo lives at Rocinha slum and pressed by the poverty or lured by the opulent life of playboys in Rio, he engages as a drug dealer soldier. Paulo will be dead before he reaches fifteen.
Antonio is a neighbour of Paulo and even study in the same public school. His parents barely earn 100$ a month but they live in house with taped water and electricity. Antonio think he might engage with Paulo to help his family, but his parents keep telling him otherwise.
If you put all this different children in the same bag you may save Maria, Tiago has not got any attention, Paulo is doomed and may bring Antonio with him. Each one needs a different political action. If Antonio receives an XO from OLPC he will stay at home instead of strolling around and get this bad influence from Paulo. He will be playing and learning with his connected friends just like Tiago does. Paulo may receive one as well, this could be a good chance for him, but may be not enough.
Just looking at the forest you may not figure out how to save a tree.
Dave
why do we have a situation where money is more influential than morality?
Try this .... why is a litre of oil more valuable than a human life??
If Zimbabwe had significant oil reserves would Mugabe be still one of DUBYA's mates?
Would Morgan Tsanguerai (choose any spelling you choose) not have a black eye?
WHAT THE "F---" IS HAPPENING TO MY WORLD??
dad
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