Thursday 1 November 2007

Boom of "Village Bloggers"

Been visiting some blogs of village kids lately, and each day I search for these kids I find more and more popping of from all corners of the country. While the kids in Colombo and the big cities play WarCraft living in the world of avatars or browsing porn, the kids in the village seem to be making better use of technology for a much more productive purpose.

It is amazing how confidently they express their views and that too in their second language. May be not in perfect English, but then again who says there is perfect English, you speak to an English kid and he will make a mistake or two in five the sentences he speaks, so what the heck it's his first language and only our second language. It really does not matter whether it is "an apple" or "a apple", all that matters is the communication and getting your ideas through. We used to call people from remote parts "Bayya" or "Godaya" (now now don't deny you said it at least once) but there is no such thing today, there in no place called remote, technology has broken the barriers of distance and remoteness, now everybody is a neighbor on the Internet.

Each time I visit a blog of one of these kids I try to leave an encouraging comment, since blogging is no easy task if others don't read and comment on your blog. Blogging needs motivation (specially for the new comers and the kids), it's not simple as "dear diary" where you did not want anyone to read, but now you want someone to read and also comment. I don't try to comment on their language or some mistakes they make, but I give them time to get their confidence. May be after several months of posting I might just give them some "constructive" criticism for them to improve both their communication skills and language.

So people if you find some free time do visit the blogs of these kids and take a minute to leave a comment. They may seem to be uninteresting with titles like; "my mother", "my village", "my school", "my teacher", "Sigirya", "king Dutugamunu" etc. etc., but think of it as you playing your part in helping the next generation to beat the world.

Remember "A Smile and a kind words goes a long way".
PEACE!

2 comments:

enTRpy said...

It's so great that kids in rural areas are able to join in and be a part of the global village. I have to admit that I haven't been very good at leaving comments lately but I totally agree with you - a simple encouraging comment in their blogs would go a long way in boosting their confidence.

Hats off to you for posting on this topic. I've been meaning to write something on similar lines for a while.

Hakim said...

It's sometimes amazing to see how different people think alike. I had lost touch with blogging and also reading blogs due to my work, but I just read another post (http://aweekinsrilanka.blogspot.com/2007/08/new-breed-of-bloggers.html) which was a couple of weeks old, with the same set of thoughts as mine, so this makes at least 3 of us :-) who want to help out + Wanni of the Mahavillachchiya project.