NGO

While interning I was at the amazing school of Battle Creek Lakeview High School, I am sorry Western thinks you should teach only in the inner city, you will not be able to intern there. When I was there one of the teachers had a program that had all the history classes collect money for numerous causes like nets for kids in Africa, buying people animals, things of that nature. It was great because each block could choose what exactly they wanted to raise money for. Some did nets, some bought a pig, it worked really well. That is neither here nor there. I guess it shows that this is a way to really get your students thinking about helping global issues.

While I was in Florida, I ran across a Newsweek article that peaked my interest, in the same lines as my time at Lakeview did. There is a group of people who are trying to make it possible for all children to own, or at least have access, to a laptop. I know this isn't as noble as feeding them or malaria nets, but it starts helping developing country's from the ground up. The process of change isn't one block at a time, it is many working together.

Ok, so these like guys run on solar power, can withstand heat and humidity. They even thought of little things that would prove difficult for users, like making sure the screen won't glare in the sun. Just because they are giving them to third world countries doesn't mean they can't have nice things! The software is great too, the computers are so children can learn how to use them, how many of us learned computers from a class? No, we sat down and played around with it. The Computers will have useful software as it's educational device, like Word, Excel and Powerpoint. In my eyes, those are the big three when it comes to being needed in the world.

What I really love about this was that you can give a laptop and get a laptop. It costs $399. Think of it this way, there are always fund raisers for charity, well this charity gives back to your school. They aren't great laptops, but it has word processing which is really the key, especially if you are working in a poor American school. It is a fund raiser most people should get behind since it not only helps out others but they can help out their students in the process. Though, $400 is a lot of money.
You don't have to get a laptop in return, for half the price you can simply give them. I know the makers want to give them to all developing countries but right now they are focusing on Africa.

The fact that these men have made a computer for under $200 is an amazing feat, it almost didn't happen. They had some problems with the getting the prices of processors down, but somehow they found someone who could make them cheap enough to make it worth while. Sadly, it was probably made possible because of some sort of horror in mining happening in Africa.