Re: RE: [Air-l] Fwd: [school-discuss] $100.00 laptop
Denise, Ouch! I do not doubt your experience in Africa, however, your comment sounds like a terribly generalised condemnation of an entire continent. Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "Denise N. Rall" <denrall@yahoo.com> Date: Monday, October 3, 2005 5:23 am Subject: RE: [Air-l] Fwd: [school-discuss] $100.00 laptop
Okay,
Great on the $100 laptop. But how many people on this list have actually worked in Africa?
Well I have, and I lived in a locked compound on an agricultural resarch station and the number one problem on the station was theft. I had a full time cook who checked up on my house during the day and a guard that patrolled the buildings at night.
All I had in the building was some furniture, a lamp and some clothes, no computers. I had a camera in there. The computers were kept elsewhere in a double locked room. The gates to the compound were also locked at night. There were as I mentioned, patrolling guards.
Down the road from us was the power station. It was surrounded by a DOUBLE barbed wire fence with a height of at least 2.5 meters. To keep people from stealing the electrical wire.
Well and fine but how long are those laptops going to stay in the hands of the children they are meant to help. Maybe if the kid also has a handy AK-47.
Cheers, Denise
Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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I agree. Still, the stereotype might apply to a large proportion of African countries and even the rest of the world's poorest countries. Poor as in "selling your child into slavery so that the child can at least survive" poor. Under such circumstances, I just don't see the kid proudly toting a brand-new laptop strolling down the street to school. Denise has a good point (and so has Radhika). It is very, very unlikely that those laptops are going to do much good for the kids they were intended for. Best, Charlie On 10/3/05, Paul Chenoweth <chenowethp@mail.belmont.edu> wrote:
Denise, Ouch! I do not doubt your experience in Africa, however, your comment sounds like a terribly generalised condemnation of an entire continent.
Paul
--
Charlie Breindahl External Lecturer University of Copenhagen + IT University of Copenhagen Web: http://staff.hum.ku.dk/hitch/ Phone: +45 35 32 81 14 Mobile: +45 51 92 15 98 E-mail: hitch@hum.ku.dk "For the modern Don Quixote, the windmills have been preprogrammed to turn into knights" - Janet H. Murray
participants (2)
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Charlie Breindahl -
Paul Chenoweth