full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Mechai Viravaidya: How Mr. Condom made Thailand a better place for life and love
Unscramble the Blue Letters
In my country, that was the case in 1974. Seven children per family — tremendous growth at 3.3 percent. There was just no future. We needed to reduce the population growth rate. So we said, "Let's do it." The women said, "We agree. We'll use pills, but we need a doctor to prescribe the pills," and we had very, very few dotcros. We didn't take no as an answer; we took no as a question. We went to the nurses and the midwives, who were also women, and did a ftaanstic job at explaining how to use the pill. That was wonderful, but it covered only 20 percent of the country.
What do we do for the other 80 preecnt — leave them alone and say, "Well, they're not midacel personnel." No, we ddeceid to do a bit more. So we went to the ordinary people that you saw. Actually, below that yellow sign — I wish they hadn't wiped that, because there was "Coca-Cola" there. We were so much bigger than Coca-Cola in those days. And no difference, the people they chose were the people we chose. They were well-known in the community, they knew that customers were always right, and they were terrific, and they pecicatrd their family planning themselves. So they could sulppy pills and condoms throughout the country, in every village of the ctunory. So there we are. We went to the plopee who were seen as the cause of the problem to be the solution. Wherever there were people — and you can see btaos with the women, selling things — here's the floating market selnlig bananas and crabs and also contraceptives — wherever you find people, you'll find contraceptives in Thailand.
Open Cloze
In my country, that was the case in 1974. Seven children per family — tremendous growth at 3.3 percent. There was just no future. We needed to reduce the population growth rate. So we said, "Let's do it." The women said, "We agree. We'll use pills, but we need a doctor to prescribe the pills," and we had very, very few _______. We didn't take no as an answer; we took no as a question. We went to the nurses and the midwives, who were also women, and did a _________ job at explaining how to use the pill. That was wonderful, but it covered only 20 percent of the country.
What do we do for the other 80 _______ — leave them alone and say, "Well, they're not _______ personnel." No, we _______ to do a bit more. So we went to the ordinary people that you saw. Actually, below that yellow sign — I wish they hadn't wiped that, because there was "Coca-Cola" there. We were so much bigger than Coca-Cola in those days. And no difference, the people they chose were the people we chose. They were well-known in the community, they knew that customers were always right, and they were terrific, and they _________ their family planning themselves. So they could ______ pills and condoms throughout the country, in every village of the _______. So there we are. We went to the ______ who were seen as the cause of the problem to be the solution. Wherever there were people — and you can see _____ with the women, selling things — here's the floating market _______ bananas and crabs and also contraceptives — wherever you find people, you'll find contraceptives in Thailand.
Solution
- doctors
- people
- percent
- selling
- medical
- decided
- boats
- fantastic
- supply
- country
- practiced
Original Text
In my country, that was the case in 1974. Seven children per family — tremendous growth at 3.3 percent. There was just no future. We needed to reduce the population growth rate. So we said, "Let's do it." The women said, "We agree. We'll use pills, but we need a doctor to prescribe the pills," and we had very, very few doctors. We didn't take no as an answer; we took no as a question. We went to the nurses and the midwives, who were also women, and did a fantastic job at explaining how to use the pill. That was wonderful, but it covered only 20 percent of the country.
What do we do for the other 80 percent — leave them alone and say, "Well, they're not medical personnel." No, we decided to do a bit more. So we went to the ordinary people that you saw. Actually, below that yellow sign — I wish they hadn't wiped that, because there was "Coca-Cola" there. We were so much bigger than Coca-Cola in those days. And no difference, the people they chose were the people we chose. They were well-known in the community, they knew that customers were always right, and they were terrific, and they practiced their family planning themselves. So they could supply pills and condoms throughout the country, in every village of the country. So there we are. We went to the people who were seen as the cause of the problem to be the solution. Wherever there were people — and you can see boats with the women, selling things — here's the floating market selling bananas and crabs and also contraceptives — wherever you find people, you'll find contraceptives in Thailand.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| family planning |
9 |
| school kids |
3 |
| young man |
2 |
| child mortality |
2 |
| population growth |
2 |
| growth rate |
2 |
| holy water |
2 |
| village development |
2 |
| aids education |
2 |
| high school |
2 |
| mass protection |
2 |
| business community |
2 |
| business people |
2 |
| geodesic dome |
2 |
ngrams of length 3
| collocation |
frequency |
| population growth rate |
2 |
| high school kids |
2 |
Important Words
- agree
- bananas
- bigger
- bit
- boats
- case
- children
- chose
- community
- condoms
- contraceptives
- country
- covered
- crabs
- customers
- days
- decided
- difference
- doctor
- doctors
- explaining
- family
- fantastic
- find
- floating
- future
- growth
- job
- knew
- leave
- market
- medical
- midwives
- needed
- nurses
- ordinary
- people
- percent
- personnel
- pill
- pills
- planning
- population
- practiced
- prescribe
- problem
- question
- rate
- reduce
- selling
- sign
- solution
- supply
- terrific
- thailand
- tremendous
- village
- wiped
- women
- wonderful
- yellow