The Green And White Machine

All great causes come with an underlying responsibility to work towards the greater good. At least, this is how I think anyway. When does a non-profit group who is trying to help; cross the line between revolutionary and gimmick? In my eyes, it crosses the line when its ideals cease to offer a solution that is viable, necessary and worthy of investment. Does this make the group “bad” or just in poor taste?

The “One Laptop Per Child” organization wants to put a laptop in the hands of every child in the world. Nobile idea but nonetheless it does nothing to help the greater good when the majority of the children they wish to help don’t have enough food to eat let alone have electricity or internet access to connect to the world. I’d really like to ask those who harbor this vision of they really think allowing these 3rd world children the ability to learn on a computer supersedes their ability to eat. It’s a simple concept. You can’t start somewhere in the middle and work in both directions until you’ve fixed the problems with the world. You have to start at the lowest point and work up. Stop the genocide, HIV infection and starvation of these countries and then worry about getting them into the “Google” world.

Now for those of you who say, “Every charity can’t work on the same thing” YES THEY CAN and that’s what it will likely take to rid the world of the starvation and disease that plagues these countries.

Along with this, the charity touts that it has created the “$100.00” computer yet it ask for a donation of $200.00 to purchase a computer for a starving child. I tend to wonder why the $100.00 computer costs its donators $200.00. Who’s making money in this non profit company? A search of the site did not yield any information outside of the cost for shipping.

I really understand the idea behind this and I honestly feel it’s a noble idea but on a deeper level I feel that it’s fruitless and will not drive the impact that they hope it will.