Five years ago, Peru plunked down $200 million on more than 800,000 low-cost laptops to distribute to schoolchildren. The purchase was part of the global One Laptop Per Child initiative that aimed to end poverty with computers.
But now there are a lot of questions about how successful Peru’s effort has been, especially in rural areas like the village of Lacachi.
Getting to Lacachi means first taking a country bus two hours from the nearest town, away from the shores of Lake Titicaca, then hiking a few miles through cold, windy hills. Lacachi is a cluster of mudbrick homes, pens filled with cows and pigs, dusty footpaths and a small elementary school painted pistachio green.
The school has about two-dozen kids. They wear sweatpants or long skirts to class, and sandals made of recycled tires. Each morning they line up outside in front of the mountains to sing the national anthem.
In many ways, Lacachi feels lost in time. Electricity arrived just a few years ago, and it goes out a lot. About half of the houses still don’t have power. Potable water is supposed to arrive next year. There’s no cellphone signal. (via One Child, One Laptop … And Mixed Results In Peru : NPR) Click through to read the rest of the report trasncribed, or to listen to audio version. Both make my heart ache.