Donation or Investment - Part One

I know you have many requests for your dollars, and so - no surprise! -- I am asking too.

Here is my pitch:

I am not asking for a donation but an investment.    I want to supply every one of my twenty-four 2013 first year student nurses with a small netbook computer.   They will cost about $300 each, or a $7,200 total.  

The 2011 First Year Class with their new netbooks.

A course textbook costs from $50.00 to 150.00 [plus] for every course.  Some courses require two textbooks.  So if I were asking for textbooks for the four courses I teach, a low-ball average would be the same $300.00.

The netbooks will be used by the students for their entire diploma programme for every course -- and as an added benefit they can play games, listen to music, watch YouTube, and socialize on Facebook.  [Another benefit:  this is a painless way to learn computer skills and there is no need to run a course to teach them.]    They could then almost be like student nurses in the North -- and that is really the point, isn’t it?  

Unless they master the computer skills of the present, they will never compete in the future – and your children will be asked by some “do-gooder” like me for another donation for their children.   Our parents and grandparents made donations, as they did really care for the less fortunate.  However, we still have the “poor” with us… and so will our children’s children .....  unless something different is done.  

I am not asking for saintly altruism; I can accept "informed selfishness":  

Canada and the United States will need many more nurses than we are educating today.  We will need immigrants to look after us oldsters.   I don’t know about you, but I would really like immigrant nurses who are as skilled as our homegrown nurses.

The overall health of a country’s population is a critical factor in its ability to develop economically.  And this is where nurses come in.  Guyana nurses are in the trenches fighting for good nutrition, sanitation, public and school health.   If we can help them do their jobs better today, there's less probability our children will need to help their children.

You won’t get these annoying posts from me.  I may be projecting here, but the begathons, like “Goldie” on PBS make me crazy.   So if I get enough dollars for my first year students, you won’t hear from me again… till next year.   [Well, maybe I lie, as the 2012 First Year students do not have netbooks.]

 

I can’t distribute indulgences now that I am on Martin Luther’s team.  However, I can assure you that you will feel saved, be part of the elect, lose weight, sing an aria at Lincoln Center [for Canadians, Roy Thompson Hall] and your children will think you are fabulous.   

 I have tried to secure a grant -or even a discount- from foundations or companies, but have not been successful.    (I still am writing new applications and a few have not yet been answered.)    So I need to count on my friends, blog readers and rich, old former students in order to make these computers happen.    

And you can invest right now... See "Donate" in the right column above.