The Department of Health and Human Services is shipping 20,000 LeapPad Learning Systems to women in Afghanistan. While LeapPad is marketed here as en edutainment system for children, this version was modified for adults who speak Dari and Pashto but aren't necessarily able to read. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the systems will be used to inform the women about healthcare issues like diet, immunization, pregnancy, and disease prevention in, er, unique ways:
For example, said LeapFrog Chief Executive Officer Tom Kalinske, reproduction is a culturally and religiously sensitive topic in the country. The solution: a page of text and a page of pictures with the analogy of growing carrots. Growing them too close together produces skinny and not-well- formed carrots that do not look good to eat, but if you space the carrots, they're plump and appetizing — the lesson being it's better to space children rather than having them in rapid succession.
Link (Thanks, Mr. Hungry!)
