Meeting with Child Line

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 the Digital Citizen Indaba conference and take this opportunity further.

Expanding MXit counselling service to Eastern Cape

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 from the Eastern Cape in a space of a few days. Also have a meeting with Zara Nicholson from the Weekend Argus this Wednesday about the MXit project.

Tonight I will be joining Ramon Thomas from NETucation for a talk at St. Cyprians Girls' School. He is also a speaker at the 27Dinner tomorrow night. Definitely not to be missed.

Help is at addicts' fingertips

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 in the process of training more reconstructed individuals who have conquered their addictions.

You can read the article here:

http://www.cput.ac.za/news/clippings/articles/august_2008/AthloneNewsPg1_20Aug2008.pdf

http://www.cput.ac.za/news/clippings/articles/august_2008/AthloneNewsPg3_20Aug2008.pdf

MXit subscribers in 3digits

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 of a young lady who is being reconstructed and this service being part of that process. This is what it is all about, using the technology to make a change in our communities be it virtual or physical.

ZA World Wide Web 2008 Conference

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 to share some of our findings at this conference next month.

Helping others

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.