I don't take it away from any child who sets up her own business (especially a child who apparently has a mother who can't even really type on the computer well). Technology has made it possible for people in poor areas to make money. There was some "business guy" who gave some women in poor areas cell phones, and they turned having a cell phone into a little business of charging others for using their phone. People will find a way to earn money if they anything at all that they can do it with, and children are no exception if they're reasonably intelligent (and most are). Necessity is, as they say, the mother of invention.
Having said that (and again, not wanting to take anything at all away from a kid who sets up her own business), the fact that some kids in some other countries are doing that type of thing doesn't say that there aren't kids in America doing something similar (or some version of it). I can think of 10/11-years who have been featured on news programs because they've written a book or started up a program to get Thanksgiving dinners to the local people who don't have money to buy it. There are kids who have started all kinds of fund-raising type things that have taken off, gained support, and amounted to the kids being in the media and their own spokespeople for their own causes/businesses. A high school girl was featured on Oprah's show because she started up her own soap/shampoo business for make products for people whose skin reacted to chemicals in commercially made products. That kid ended up with a contract with WalMart and then needed to get a little building to keep up with her growing business.
Maybe it's impressive and new to see some kids from countries that, until more recently, didn't have ways for people in poor or rural communities to make money; but the fact that (fortunately) such ways are now available to those people doesn't mean that there's an "either/or" thing, and that many American kids aren't doing some version of such efforts. Conversely, just because a kid in some rural area in another country is living in the streets, that doesn't mean there's not some American kid living in the streets either. It's not "either/or". There's "room at the top" (of whatever the thing is) for everyone, and there's also room at the bottom for everyone too.
Two of my kids, both in their twenties (the other one is in his thirties, so he's that much farther away from being a teen) have multiple business/personal endeavors. They aren't all that different from any of the friends they've grown up with or from other young people I know in middle-class America. One works in publishing for 12 hours a day, has a second job doing fundraising, has taught guitar on the side, writes, and has his own business websites related to either publishing or guitar. The other is pursuing two majors, as well as a certificate in teaching signing. While she'd been in school she's had the "side effort" of earning increasing credentials as a child-care worker while she earns a living and finished school. She's got more than one business (one offline but with its own website), is active in a couple of causes, and has volunteered at animal shelters because animals are one of her causes. She has designed her own websites, is an artist who paints and draws but also makes two different kinds of crafts (and sells some things online). Both of them have social lives. Both find time to take more courses and/or read for their enjoyment.
Of just a few of their friends, there's an accountant, a couple of college professors, an architect, a fashion model, one who works in politics, one who has "some Washington D.C. professional job", one who has his own CD out (but works as well), a public-health professional (Masters degree level), and a couple of others working in business. These are the kids they've known since their school days and still remain friends with (to some degree). That's just one little circle of American young people (and I haven't even named another bunch of them in the interest of time and space here).
All my not be perfect in America, but it is not "falling". A whole lot of people, for some reason, either want or need or enjoy believing it is. A lot of people of my generation (Baby Boomers) have gotten better education and better "level" work than their parents. It looks to me as if my kids' generation are doing that one better by becoming educated in, or developing skills in, multiple areas. Yes, many have had the benefit of not being hungry throughout their childhood, not having to earn money unless they wanted to, and parents who have received at least a certain level of education; so maybe they've had some advantages over kids from poorer countries. Still, with a generation of of twenty-somethings who are as hard-working, educated, and talented as so many of these young people are; I don't think America has to worry about leaving its future in the hands of people like this.
I think it's safe to say that most Americans would very much like to see kids (all people) from some of those rural and/or severely disadvantaged regions in the world have similar opportunities to those American kids have had. Now, with technology, many more kids from such regions will get to show how smart and industrious they can be.
