Not long ago, an unnamed global corporation decided that it wanted to help children in the southern African nation of Namibia -- and so it spent millions to donate scores of new computers and television sets for the classrooms in a particular region of this poverty-plagued, mostly rural nation.
They should have talked to someone like Jonathan Johnnidis first. Currently pursuing his doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania with a focus on virology, Johnnidis recently spent time in rural Namibia working to improve healthcare with a non-governmental agency (NGO) called WorldTeach. The rural aid worker had information the large corporate benefactor apparently did not -- that there is no electricity grid in that region.
Johnnidis drew a sharp contrast between that misguided project and another, more successful partnership between Namibia and the government of Germany, which was once colonial ruler of the African nation and now is helping to build miles of new roadways there.
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