Technology for Community Empowerment

This morning Ramon Thomas and I met with the national coordinator of Child Line who is interested in the counselling project using MXit. The meeting was fruitful as we discussed at the endless possibilities and advantages of having such a technology for the Child Line counselling centres. We will resume our conversations around implementation after [...]

After a short visit to the Eastern Cape and sharing some of the work we are doing in Cape Town on the Cape Flats, we had and amazing response from young people who needed this service as they are facing the problem of alcohol abuse in their homes and communities. We have acquired 15 subscribers [...]

A week later after meeting with the editor, Chantel Erfort, of the Independent Community Newspapers, we got her support for our project. We also got front page coverage about the project in the Athlone News. This will bring the MXit counselling service to the public attention after testing for such a long time.
We are also [...]

I’ve been invited to meet with the editor of the Independent Community Newspapers about the MXit counselling for substance abuse. This will be the first time that we will promote the service other than by means of word of mouth.
The service also recorded its 100th subscriber to this service. We already have a success story [...]

We will have 4 papers presented at the 10th ZA-WWW 2008 conference after it has been accepted for this peer-reviewed conference. Two of the research papers addresses the use of social networking and blogging as a means to empower citizens in Communities in Tension (CiTs). This is wonderful news as we will have an opportunity [...]

Through the facebook and twitter technologies members of the impact team find it as a means to reach out and connect with others part of their social network. It is interesting how they support one another using these technologies. Finding use for it within their context.

I can’t believe that after a few weeks of introducing the MXit counselling for substance abuse we already reached 50 subscribers. It is great to see how people are being reached at a place where they feel comfortable. This for many people using the service will be the first step to reconstruction.