In our world, over 1.6 billion people live without any access to electricity. That means no lights, no television, no mobile phones, and no Internet. Living the way we do, it’s hard to imagine such a life without this basic utility. At any moment, we can hit a switch and have light at any moment of the day. We take for granted how easily we can Google anything. How often do we just forget to be thankful for all the utilities we have constant access to?
I spent the last week without stable and readily available Internet access. I’d come across about 15 minutes of access each day where I would post a blog post, tweet, or connect in some social media way. Using the Internet is pretty much the way I, like most people, communicate with the outside world much further than my little circle of access. I do so much of my work through the Internet and even more importantly with electricity.
Without electricity, most communication would have to be physical communication. How then would people hear their thoughts? How can they be known when their communication with the outside world is so limited? It becomes our responsibility to let them be heard. Through our actions, we can raise people’s awareness of the other half of the world, the world that can’t speak for themselves, the supposedly forgotten.
