The body without blood—A guest post by Sibongile Masondo
This is a guest post by Sibongile Masondo. She is the subject advisor for Computer Applications Technology in the Amajuba district in Kwa-Zulu Natal. She has a passion for e-Education. This blog post is taken from her speech at our graduation ceremony held on 11 August 2010.
My Message to you today is about the body without blood
The body has various connected parts. Each part is made to stand on its own at the fixed position to perform a specific function or task. No part leaves its position and goes to another — the head will always be fixated on top, the feet at the bottom, and all other parts likewise.
How do they share food together?
How do they get oxygen circulated among themselves?
Blood does this circulation. Blood is an agent of this function. Blood will carry food and oxygen and circulate them through the whole body as needed. Why needed? Because the body needs nourishment in order to survive.
Analogously speaking
All countries of the world stand on their fixed positions — America will never go to South Africa physically, neither will Namibia nor Zimbabwe nor Mozambique, no matter how near they are to South Africa. But these countries are able to communicate — they are connected.
What communicates the information around the world are the ICT’s (Information Communication Technologies). Without ICT the world will never be connected with information.
You should take note that I said Information Communication Technologies not information Communication Technology because we have quite a number of them — your TV’s, cell phones, radios…
As we talk of world golbalization today we can communicate easily using these technologies because these technologies make information so easily accessible throughout the wolrd. We make us of e-Banking, e-Health, e-Education.
Using the internet, you can do cell phone banking, and internet banking without even worrying yourself about standing in long queues at the bank or driving all the way from Nqutu to Dundee or Vryheid to get to a Nedbank branch. You may even be involved in an accident because of a high speed ruch to beat the 15:30 bank closure.
e-Health
A Physician or Specialist in the UK can conduct an operation through by connecting via the internet and guide the doctors doing an operation on a patient here in South Africa or anywhere else in the world without him/her being there.
e-Education
As we all know, education is the mother of all professions. How delicate Bafowethu deal with young inquisitive minds. How manipulative do these young minds always want to be. Our learners, our precious gift from God, need nourishment of the mind. The Scientific research has proven all over the world that the use of ICT’s facilitate learning and teaching at all educational levels.
It is therefore a call to all relevant structures in our society and in the whole country to prioritize the use of ICT’s. The challenge therefore that I would like to give all of us is that we should heed the call of obtaining computer skills training for all of our country’s citizens. Computer skills training gives opportunities to all.
You can imagine, and this is not a joke, to see a young South African citizen stanging in front of an ATM but not knowing how to access it, and then fall prey to criminals because he/she will end up asking help even from criminals.
Is it not a painful experience?
So the challenge goes on and on…
