Third World Country + First World Technology = One World?

I'm a bit on the fence about the OLPC idea, on one hand, I'd like to think that children in poverty stricken countries deserve the right to a device that would help to bridge the digital divide and get a fair chance at some sort of education. Yet a part of me thinks that the money could be put to better use such as providing better health care, water pipes to villages where it's needed most and teaching them agriculture and farming so that these places can learn to feed themselves.

Some of my main concerns are that these are 6-12 year olds; I'm just not sure how well they'll look after such a device. If I recall correctly, when I was that age I was quite rough with many of my own possessions. Other points of concern are that the children won't have enough strength to physically power the hand generator so that the laptop could run, they could sell it off for food, find online pornography if the Internet was available to them, or theft and jealously could result in them losing the device forever.

But perhaps we're being a bit harsh here. OLPC is a nonprofit organization with a specific mission. Think of it this way, (for example) World Vision let's you sponsor a child and pay for their food, healthcare, water, etc…, but it may not pay for other things such as footwear, a family to live with, education, etc... So let's give them a chance. If you look up the specifications of the OLPC laptop, you'll find that it's available to children in schools and they have battery rechargers that can charge 10 batteries at once.

A very interesting research is being done by Sugata Mitra, an education researcher who says that "There are places on Earth, in every country, where, for various reasons, good schools cannot be built and good teachers cannot or do not want to go..." And that's true, even for those who teach for World Vision. In his research, he planted some computers in a slum in New Delhi, India and monitored the results of the usage. What he found was that kids will learn how to use the computer and then teach each other; a peer teaching peer environment that invokes curiosity, self learning and competition for knowledge.

We may think that children in these countries won't want to learn on a laptop or that their energy is better spent doing something else. But seriously, what will the kids do in their spare time? Make Nike shoes and clothes for you and me? Enslave themselves to prostitution because no one else gave them a laptop and a bit of hope that they could overcome third world struggles? Or give them a laptop, an education and a better chance at an equal future?