William Kamkwamba’s TED talk in Tamil
Recently I watched a TED talk by William Kamkwamba, which impressed me so very much. Here’s TED’s intro to this talk:
At age 14, in poverty and famine, a Malawian boy built a windmill to power his family’s home. Now at 22, William Kamkwamba, who speaks at TED, here, for the second time, shares in his own words the moving tale of invention that changed his life.
Here’s the talk: William Kamkwamba: How I harnessed the wind
When I first watched this video, I wanted to show it to people who complain about the lack of resources, people who blame it on their parents and school for lack of proper education. I particularly wanted to show this to people who worry about their lack of English knowledge.
In India, people in general equate education with the knowledge of English language. If you can speak fluent English, you are considered well educated. If you lack English knowledge, you are considered uneducated no matter how resourceful you are otherwise.
William Kamkwamba in this little talk shows how education has nothing to do with fluency English language, it has nothing much to do with even going to school! All it takes is the desire to learn, persistence and the drive inside.
But if the people I want to show this video to can’t understand English how would they watch it? Shouldn’t this knowledge reach them in the language they understand? So, worked on translating this beautiful talk by William Kamkwamba into a language I know, Tamil, my native language. The translated talk is published today. Thanks to Tharique Azeez for helping me with this work.
Here’s the link to the translated talk: காற்றை வசப்படுத்திய வில்லியம் கம்க்வம்பா
