The growing financial crisis has taken its toll on yet another non-profit group, the One Laptop Per Child Organization. The OLPC organization pretty much speaks for itself and it is obvious that their purpose is helping educate children in less developed countries, by offering laptops as means of learning.

Using laptops as tools for learning is a great idea, as the technology available today makes for better results and a faster way of searching for information and accumulating more knowledge. The organization was forced to cut staff in order to maintain the balance between costs and financial resources.

Last year, OLPC organized a campaign which ran from November 12 through December 31 and which managed to raise a total sum of $35 million. Last year, approximately 100,000 XO laptops were distributed to children living in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Mongolia and Rwanda.

The laptops being donated were basically XO laptops, which are made to last and provide the most basic commands a computer should offer. The materials from which this laptop is made are a lot thicker in order to cope with different hits it might encounter.

The XO laptops run on GNU/Linux-based OS, Sugar. The machines come with pre-installed software, offering access to music editing, drawing, writing, recording, a basic Web browser and simple computer programming.

Matt Keller declared that this shouldn’t interrupt with their activities around the world, but that this latest developments have reduced participation in the Give One, Get One Program. The Give One Get One campaign gives people the opportunity to buy an XO laptop for $199, or buy one laptop to keep and one to give away for only $399.