There are many opinions on what makes for good, sustainable "development" in impoverished countries. Personally, I believe that donating food, medicine, and clean water supplies is helpful to alleviate immediate needs, but does not solve the greater goal of equipping the recipients to get out of the extreme poverty cycle and become self-sustaining. Rather, like the teach-a-man-to-fish proverb, I believe that donations of exclusively food mostly just extend the problem until the next food shortage when everyone will likely be worse off because they will have been trained to sit and wait for international handouts to solve their local problems.
IMHO, what is needed as much or more than food is an upgrade of local skillets to those that have value in the 21st century global marketplace. Teach local residents how to pull themselves out of their impoverished rut by being able to effectively generate income themselves. IT/ICT is one of those unique areas where countries can leapfrog each other -- putting up a few cheap cell phone towers obsoletes the need to invest in laying expensive copper to build a land-line infrastructure. My one-semester intro to ICT course turns out workers who are much more employable than someone in the US with five years of DOS experience.
I believe technology skills gives people the ability to market themselves, and their country, on the world stage. $5000 in food might give a village an extra month or three worth of calories, but fifty $100 laptops just might inspire and equip three or four bright teenagers to solve their own problems with technology-based income generation solutions that can feed and improve their village for several generations.
Great post! I am also a Peace Corps Volunteer. I'm serving in The Gambia in West Africa, and I have been facing much of the same issues. Here's some quick responses to a few of previous posters' questions:
* Why money and not (just) hardware? Local monies support local IT businesses and help fuel self-sustaining solutions. Donations of hardware without monies to support them (one of the single biggest problems I've seen with donations) are the most common donations, but unfortunately generally lead to hardware lying around useless because there is no power to run them, or no money to pay for technicians to fix them. If you want to help, and want to help by donating hardware, make sure you also donate a budget for maintenance AND power.
* What IT projects are available in the Peace Corps? Every country has a different set of projects, but the general motivation is helping countries build sustainable IT (aka ICT) infrastructures. Here we are primarily focused on teaching IT at the schools and helping the government effectively use the IT they have including lots of database work. Many volunteers here help set up and maintain hardware while they teach basic computing. Other countries have small business development projects that include IT implementation projects.
* What can you do other than donate money or hardware? Donate your time. Donate your brain. Donate the experience you were lucky enough to have a chance to get. Even if you can't spare two years to do something like Peace Corps or Geek Corps, you can give a kid the same chance by spending even just a single semester teaching them what you've experienced. I've just set up a Computer Science Bachelor's degree program at the University of The Gambia. There are maybe a handful of people total in this country with CS Master's degrees. Most of these people are looking for more profitable employment abroad. We desperately need good teachers to come train, even for just a single semester, the future tech minds in this country. The talent and ability and motivation all exist in the students here -- some of these kids are as bright and brighter than anyone I've met in the US, Asia, or Europe. But they don't have the talent teaching them, and that's what keeps them impoverished and disadvantaged and unable to come back to effectively teach their own. If you have a background in computers and a Master's degree or a PhD and want to help, please, please, please consider taking even just a few weeks to teach somewhere it is really needed, whether it be The Gambia, West Africa, or Flint, Michigan.
Please e-mail me direct if you are interested in teaching CS for a semester or two in The Gambia, or if you'd like to know more about Peace Corps' IT efforts in West Africa.
Slashdot Mirror
#comment: Re:Developing World? v1.1
s/skillets/skillsets/g
There are many opinions on what makes for good, sustainable "development" in impoverished countries. Personally, I believe that donating food, medicine, and clean water supplies is helpful to alleviate immediate needs, but does not solve the greater goal of equipping the recipients to get out of the extreme poverty cycle and become self-sustaining. Rather, like the teach-a-man-to-fish proverb, I believe that donations of exclusively food mostly just extend the problem until the next food shortage when everyone will likely be worse off because they will have been trained to sit and wait for international handouts to solve their local problems.
IMHO, what is needed as much or more than food is an upgrade of local skillets to those that have value in the 21st century global marketplace. Teach local residents how to pull themselves out of their impoverished rut by being able to effectively generate income themselves. IT/ICT is one of those unique areas where countries can leapfrog each other -- putting up a few cheap cell phone towers obsoletes the need to invest in laying expensive copper to build a land-line infrastructure. My one-semester intro to ICT course turns out workers who are much more employable than someone in the US with five years of DOS experience.
I believe technology skills gives people the ability to market themselves, and their country, on the world stage. $5000 in food might give a village an extra month or three worth of calories, but fifty $100 laptops just might inspire and equip three or four bright teenagers to solve their own problems with technology-based income generation solutions that can feed and improve their village for several generations.
Great post! I am also a Peace Corps Volunteer. I'm serving in The Gambia in West Africa, and I have been facing much of the same issues. Here's some quick responses to a few of previous posters' questions:
* Why money and not (just) hardware? Local monies support local IT businesses and help fuel self-sustaining solutions. Donations of hardware without monies to support them (one of the single biggest problems I've seen with donations) are the most common donations, but unfortunately generally lead to hardware lying around useless because there is no power to run them, or no money to pay for technicians to fix them. If you want to help, and want to help by donating hardware, make sure you also donate a budget for maintenance AND power.
* What IT projects are available in the Peace Corps? Every country has a different set of projects, but the general motivation is helping countries build sustainable IT (aka ICT) infrastructures. Here we are primarily focused on teaching IT at the schools and helping the government effectively use the IT they have including lots of database work. Many volunteers here help set up and maintain hardware while they teach basic computing. Other countries have small business development projects that include IT implementation projects.
* What can you do other than donate money or hardware? Donate your time. Donate your brain. Donate the experience you were lucky enough to have a chance to get. Even if you can't spare two years to do something like Peace Corps or Geek Corps, you can give a kid the same chance by spending even just a single semester teaching them what you've experienced. I've just set up a Computer Science Bachelor's degree program at the University of The Gambia. There are maybe a handful of people total in this country with CS Master's degrees. Most of these people are looking for more profitable employment abroad. We desperately need good teachers to come train, even for just a single semester, the future tech minds in this country. The talent and ability and motivation all exist in the students here -- some of these kids are as bright and brighter than anyone I've met in the US, Asia, or Europe. But they don't have the talent teaching them, and that's what keeps them impoverished and disadvantaged and unable to come back to effectively teach their own. If you have a background in computers and a Master's degree or a PhD and want to help, please, please, please consider taking even just a few weeks to teach somewhere it is really needed, whether it be The Gambia, West Africa, or Flint, Michigan.
Please e-mail me direct if you are interested in teaching CS for a semester or two in The Gambia, or if you'd like to know more about Peace Corps' IT efforts in West Africa.