Power to the people?

A couple of days ago, I tuned in to watch a show entitled Zimbabwe’s forgotten children.


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I pause, as I can not find the words to describe how that documentary showed me a world that just… just… just is not right.

It just isn’t right!
It just ain’t right!
And it seems it just can’t get right.

Or can it?

Well, as my heart welled up with emotion and questions raced through my head about the whole grim situation, I began to ask myself what I could do about it. I went about my life and business as those questions circled around and around in my head. And then out of nowhere I felt a glimmer of hope fill my heart. The string of events which led to this are as follows.

It just so happens that I have recently gotten involved in raising funds for a charity related to development. It does not feel like an extremely significant contribution because… well… who am I? All I am is a gal who has decided to go for a run and have asked people to sponsor me with a few dollars and some pocket change; that’s all. I took my sponsorship form to work. I was overwhelmed by the amount of support I got from my colleagues. They helped me to raise my target amount in just a matter of hours and that response made me feel that I could truly make a difference in this world.

As my heart began to pump with excitement and inspiration, I started to have a few more hopeful thoughts about situations in sub Saharan Africa such as the Zimbabwe situation. I began to ask what I could do to help as a daughter of the soil, perhaps when I next visit. I also asked myself what I could do as a professional in the built environment, which brings me back to my focus for this month.

Energy and Power

It does not sound as exciting or as sexy as hair and makeup, fashion, business or anything else really, not on this blog anyway. But do you know the impact that the lack of a reliable supply of energy and power has had on people like Zimbabwe’s forgotten children? How about the impact of a lack of power to the first world as we know it? Remember the North East American blackout in 2003? This impacted on major transport systems such as rail and air, it had an impact on the financial markets, it had an impact on water systems. What else happens when the first world has no power? It affects major forms of communication. No facebooking, internet banking, online shopping amongst other online business transactions; no blogging when we want and where we want. Well, you could do it on your mobile phone but no power means the internet service providers relying on communication network exchanges supported by massive data centres powered by hundreds of thousands of volts of electric power will just not be… well… online! There is such a tremendous demand for power to carry today’s technology; which is always advancing at unbelievable pace. Zimbabwe’s forgotten children are not thinking about facebook right now, it just isn’t at the top of their list yet. What they need is for their broken country to be put back together again.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put humpty together again… but humpty should have let you and me chip in. We CAN make a difference!

Oh, I sure do know how to get myself hyped and pumped to make a difference. The only stumbling block I have is where do I start? What size of impact should I focus on, big or small? If I could achieve something that could make a difference to a country’s power supply, how could I do it without politics coming into the mix as a stumbling block; since energy and power is such a big issue? If I think about the fact that Zimbabwe’s forgotten children cannot even flush a toilet full of the proverbial because the municipality’s sewage system is stopped, probably because there is no power to make it work; I can’t help but want to do something right here, right now, today. And leave the king’s horses and the king’s men up to their own devices.

But what they need is for their broken country to be put back together again, it is never enough for a little help here and there. What they need is for their roads to work again, for water and power to work sensibly, for good health care, education and an economy that can be restored to what it once was and even better.

They need power to run their homes and so that the children can read their homework at night. They need power to make manufacturing run again, competitively and efficiently; and hence productively so that there is enough profitability for mom and dad to have jobs again. They need power to restore and maintain good clean running water. They need power to support medical health systems. They need power to keep their schools open so that they are not closed down due to fears of a cholera breakout from a sanitation problem, which in turn puts more strain on their medical health system. And they need reliable power to keep the economy in the game of catching up to the rest of the world. They need power so that the nation can keep geared to the times of the internet age. They need power to get the economy running again.

The people need their power!