Final essay for my English course. :) It was derived on an assignment to write an essay to solve a problem that is current in the world. Personally, I had trouble writing this essay to begin with.
Dear Members of the United Nations,
As I look over the data you have given me to find a solution to better improve our world, I am puzzled. While the statistics of the world as seen in only of a village of one hundred people are interesting, they do not show a complete picture of the world. The information is too vague. I must address my problems with your facts, first. You say the village is composed of sixty Asians. From where do these Asians come? How many are Indian? How many are Chinese? How many are of Middle Eastern descent? How am I to bridge a gap with these people if I do not know what gaps there are? The questions I ask about the Asians could also be asked about Europeans and Africans. All three continents are filled with diverse people. A solution for Person A may not be needed for Human B. It is interesting you want me to find a solution for all with very little data.
But since you asked for a solution for an important world issue, I shall answer your question. Your data shows seventy people in your village, seventy percent, have never placed or received a phone call. We need to see about installing phone lines/cell towers/satellite phones, even fax machines, to isolated parts of the world so we can reduce the seventy percent to a lower number so we can united families with the sound of a voice, transmit information that may be valuable to other cultures, and modern societies can learn information first hand from the isolated areas.
Think what the power of a communicative tool can do! Sure, there will be some people who think that a magical box containing the sound of another is the work of the devil. Every “new” technology has its opponents. We cannot let that belief stop us from helping those that do not know the true value of the phone. Think about how the phone changed your life, and how it can benefit others.
For example, think of a poor mother in the jungles of Central Africa whose only son left the village in search of wealth to improve his life and maybe his mother’s. Think of the tears that could pour down her face, falling into puddles of joy, to hear that her son has found a job and is coming home to bring her to him or coming to bring her money to improve her life in Central Africa. How can we not allow this family the bliss and joy a simple phone call can provide? I know the power of a telephone call of this nature. I remember being eleven-years-old and my father being shipped to a remote area of Saudi Arabia as a support troop in Desert Shield/Desert Storm. It was a very turbulent time in my life in which I would wonder how I would ever survive. Yet, when the phone rang and on the other side of the line an operator would say, “Collect call from Saudi Arabia. Will you accept the charges?” I was happy and could see the light at the end of my dark tunnel. I was able to speak to my father thanks to the Army having satellite phones out in the desert. Thankfully, other families just like my family were able to speak to their loved ones in an isolated part of the world such as the deserts of Saudi Arabia.
Phone lines/cell towers/satellite phones not only bring people the joy of a voice, but the power of information in an emergency. Remember the case of Dr. Jerri Nielsen? She was the only doctor in Antarctica at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station; she happened to developed cancer. She may have died in Antarctica had it not been for the power of an outside link to the rest of the world. She found a lump in her breast. With the power of the Internet, she was able to consult with other doctors outside Antarctica and diagnose her breast cancer. With the knowledge that she was suffering from cancer, the military was able to get supplies dropped to her while in Antarctica so she could start cancer treatment. It has been two years since Nielsen was in Antarctica but, thankfully, she is alive today. Without the power of an outside link, she may not have received the information she needed and thus is alive today.
If the power of phone lines and the Internet could help Dr. Nielsen, if it could help cheer military families like my own family, just think of the good it will do the seventy percent that do not have phone service. A voice from the other side of the earth could provide another the correct procedure to save a child in danger. The Information Superhighway would be available to a starving society so that it can provide the society with new ways to grow crops to end their hunger. Yes, I am aware that only four percent of the world has computers. We will need to work on that, too.
Phone lines are just the tip of the iceberg in the transmittal of information. Not only do phones allow voice to travel abroad to isolated areas of the world, but also information via the Internet normally transmitted via phone lines/cell towers/satellite phones. Dr. Nielsen used that power to save her life. My example of a starving society could use it to save their crops. Emergencies, for example, are not the only reasons for the Internet. Not only can we educate and open isolated areas of the world to what we can offer them, modernized societies can learn from the information, too. I know without the power of the Internet, I would not know how friendly people around the world could really be. I would not even have those friends around the world. Also, I would not be able to read about tiny islands in the Pacific that sometimes interest me or read an article about a brewery closing in Kenya. Education is a two way street.
How should we go about installing phone lines/cell towers/satellite phones to these isolated people? We should offer tax breaks to companies that donate time, labor, and equipment to install the infrastructure for improving worldwide communications. Offer employees bonuses if they are willing to relocate to work on the installation of the infrastructure and another bonus if they are willing to stay in that location to provide technical support. Make a part of an isolated area suitable for living for those that will be coming into the area to install the infrastructure. Train the natives of an area that are new with a telephone the basics of a telephone, how to use a telephone, and how to repair and install telephone. Let us think of creative ways to make it an adventure like the first telephones in the world were. Let us not make it feel like it is a job that is not making a difference in the world as the attitude that comes across the face of your local telephone repairman. Not only does money help a project, so does a good attitude.
We have to start somewhere to improve the world. We have so many ways to do that job. A history class once taught me that in the want to modernize the world, we should not force societies into a Western way of life. I do not want to westernize a culture. I am simply suggesting we find a way to install phone lines/cell towers/satellite phones to isolated areas. Only then, when we can provide invaluable information to the people of isolated areas, can we work to solve the specific needs each area has. So what do you say, members of the United Nations? Will you help us design a plan to bring phones to the rest of the world?
©2002 S.A.L
