I agree. Begging is a pretty short term solution. What we should be doing is creating using technology that make sure Kenyans receive services, to make sure that Kenyans are not being hoodwinked. To make sure that resources are not stolen. To identify and highlight excesses and abuse. These are the sort of things that the ICT Board should be pushing for and investing in instead of the BPO panacea. If someone make a wolfram type engine that took as input the budgets for 10 years and visualized the data and identified trends, typing 'errors' would have been identified, suspicious allocations highlighted and the public would be truly informed where their money went. Never forget that out of every 10 bob you make the government takes 3 as income tax and almost 2 as VAT. Why beg if there is 3billion of OUR OWN MONEY myseteriously disappearing? 2009/5/27 Odhiambo ワシントン <odhiambo@gmail.com>
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 12:59 PM, Athar Ahmad Bhatti <atharab@gmail.com>wrote:
Dear Friends
We need to be our brother's and sister's keeper. The drought situation, increase in basic food prices and other obvious reasons become unbearable for the mwanainchi. I believe we should celebrate little about undersea cables and more about how we can aleviate the plight of our fellow citizens. Our's is a sharing profession. One of the leading figures of our industry, Bill Gates has given the majority of his wealth to a charitable trust...
I open this thread to I pray hopefully cause action. If we cannot contribute cash, why not use the power of the internet to flood websites of humanitarian institutes begging for food relief for Kenya. Posting and contribution to youtube videos about the situation. Writing realn stories on the plight. Setting up blogs, reserving a minimal sum for csr and the like. Please my sisters and brothers let us share helping our fellow family as we share technology. We cannot feed cables to our people, and economic change is longterm. I urge that we get mobilised and help. Athar
Athar,
What, if I may ask, did you find particularly not right with the Mercy Train initiative? You could have used it, rather than want to create another replica! And what needs to be done is NOT to give alms, but rather to push the govt to have policies that will ensure citizens are self-sufficient. What %age of the National Budget does the govt allocate to Agriculture (and food production in general)? Let us find ways of solving the actual problem. Charity will never solve the problem. **Reminds me of the TED Video yesterday at skunkworks meeting - Mwenda from UG*** though I still don't get what this TED thing is all about.
-- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." -- Mark Twain
_______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Skunkworks announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general