by Andy Minnaar
15. October 2009 13:13
The world is an interesting place. We take picking up the phone and making a call, speaking to friends and family, or making a business call totally normal and part of our everyday routine. In fact we cannot imagine life any other way.
For 70 percent of Africa, this is like a dream. Their reality is they have no money for a phone. Even if they had money, would there be a line or coverage or, how would they charge a phone battery, there is no power! Email, what is that? Text, never heard of it! ‘You mean you can type messages on a phone and they just go…‘Eish’.
But there may be a phone in a village not too far away. If you take the donkey and ride half a day, you will reach the phone. But when you get there the phone may be down, broken. But in the village there is a guy with a mobile phone. If you climb the big tree at his house you can get a connection and make the call.
This is the reality for an amazingly large part of the continent. Imagine making it possible for these people to own a phone number and get messages when they reach that phone—and it works… or climb the tree. Imagine if there were money in the account and they could return a call! Actually speak to a loved one, this is a dream.
Is this a true scenario, you decide?