This is the second year of a new phenomenon in the holiday hype: buy a laptop for a child living in poverty. You can visit the main site here, and purchase through Amazon. There are two choices: you can just purchase one to give for $200, or you can spend $400 and get one for yourself as well. There are mixed reviews (from adult Westerners) about the fit and function of the laptop, but the laptop was not created for them. For a child living in poverty, this most likely will change his or her life. However, this will not only change the lives of children in third world countries, but will also change the lives of our children. Until this point, the ability of Western children to interact with the world's poorest children was limited. Possible, but difficult. Now that these children are online, my children could be interacting with them as frequently and intimately as they could with a cousin on the other side of the country. And there is not a better way to cure materialism and selfishness than to care deeply for someone who has absolutely nothing to their name (except a laptop, of course.) I would love to see them set up a pen-pal system as an addition to the program.

Labels: Thankfulness