Saturday, August 29, 2009

Social Media for Non-profits workshop


Yesterday as we hosted a number of non-profit organisation representatives it was exciting to see how these non-profits would use Social media as part of the organisation strategies. It was also an opportunity to have members of the Reconstructed Team (Craig Ross (in image above), Brent Williams and Clinton Liederman) to facilitate the workshop. The day was a huge success as we not only managed to get the participants excited about Social Media but we also explored way of how it could be used practically within the various organisations for Social Change.

Some of the topics covered that got the participants talking was the use of blogs, micro-blogging and mobile phones as part of the organisation to engage with various stakeholders. Some of the challenges for many of the non-profits were the lack of resources (E.g. bandwidth, having staff dedicated to social media strategy etc). However, during the workshop we were able to discuss a basic Social Media strategy that could support Non-profit organisations. Using the following steps as part of the Social Media strategy proved to be useful to the participants:1)listening 2) participating 3) creating 4) building networks and 5) evaluating.

At the end of the day all the participants managed to start a blog, micro-blogging, get involved with social networks and draft a basic social media strategy for their various organisations.

Monday, August 24, 2009

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES




Hey the everyone.It is time for yet another mom 2.0 cafe session.Just to mention again that i am so proud of our moms.

These ladies are housewives that are desperate to make a change in their community and to touch peoples lives with their stories.They have come a long way and have learnt a lot.Today they will be taught how to use links in twitter.First they will be blogging and then using that link and putting it upon their twitter accounts.

This is all so exiting to see these moms in action and behind these laptops.Watch this for our Desperate Housewives as they take over the world take over the world one instant message at a time.

God bless you all.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Social Media For Teens Using Gmail

clinton doing gmail presentation for teens by you.

Our very first practical session with the social media for teens was a presentation on how to use gmail, (the basics steps) . After working two days on this presentation Clinton Liederman had the privilege to present it to the kids. The kids are very excited about having an email account and really enjoyed this session. My gmail inbox is always full of encouraging messages from the team. That tells me that they are learning a lot and that our work is not in vain.It is joy to see how happy these kids are when behind and operating these laptops.

Today’s session will be a ongoing of the last session sending emails and changing the boring template.

My loveable frends

Thank you GOD for saving my soul and thank you all thats supporting me.
I LOVE YOU ALL.....

my life

i wasted 7 years down the line on drugs and i stole alot of things but i thank GOD that im still alive.
i had many things to do and go to but i regret it but now im im going stronge with GOD

the week

my week at school was o but until the one day i came to school and i was walking
to my class and then i got my friend there so we were walking so a hole rush of
girls came and i thought they were coming to but they did not they were actually
coming to hit my friend and then i was trying to stop them and in between the
fight i also got a shot in the face by one of the girls and i did not even know it
at 1st but the girl that my friend broke up with she was jealous that he found
a new girl and she could not take it that he was happier than he was with her
and i laughed so she got upset i just looked at her and laughed

No looking back....

Who will you move? Well I was posed with that question a month ago. Not fully understanding the meaning thereof, upon meditating on the question, I was reminded of Mary in John 11. Scripture says, that Jesus was MOVED by Mary and felt deeply troubled and disturbed. Let us continue to look to Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our Faith. No weapon formed against us will prosper. The very weapon that Goliath intended to kill David with, was used to cut of his own head. Blessed are those who are persecuted!

Its never good to isolate yourself for to long. By the Grace of God, I will resurface. Where would we be if it was not for His Grace, Mercy, Love and Compassion.

God Bless

Friday, August 21, 2009

Advice Support Training for National Aids Help Line

On Monday I had my first Airplane experience flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg where I will spend five days together with Marlon Parker doing Advice Support Training with the National Aids Help Line.

Life Line – LifeLine collaborates with the South African National Department of Health to administer the country’s National AIDS Helpline

The Advice Support Network is a platform that we developed so that we can reach out to thousands of youth on their level for example most of South African teens has a cellphone and they use social tools like Mxit, Migg33,facebook,twitter etc. and now they can add us as a contact and start to engage without giving their name.
If I look back at my life I wanted to go for drug counseling but did not want to tell my parent that I’m using substance if a platform like this was around them maybe I wouldn’t of gone on drugging for 7 more years. So basically the training is about teaching Lifelines counselors how to use there system/platform.
To add the National AIDS Help Line on MXit you do the following:
1) Add Contacts2) Got to Jabber or Google Talk option3) ID: redchatzone@gmail.com (Jabber) or redchatzone (Google Talk) and Nickname: Red Chat Zone4) Accept Contact

Overview on Day 1 Life Line training

Here is a overview on what we did today training day No.1
First Marlon Parker did a presentation on how Mobile Phones can be usesed for Social Good. The counselors had a look at the system that they are gona work with and they had to register as counselors on the system lots of questions was asked on this stage.
After lunch we spoke about the art of mobile counseling, and I gave my personal experiences as a counselor on the Drug Advice and Support service some do’s and donts as a counselor because the one on one and telephone counseling is much more diffrent than mobile counseling.
The above pic is where the Lifeline counseling did some roleplay and getting used to the typing.
To add the National AIDS Help Line on MXit you do the following:
1) Add Contacts2) Got to Jabber or Google Talk option3) ID: redchatzone@gmail.com (Jabber) or redchatzone (Google Talk) and Nickname: Red Chat Zone4) Accept Contact

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Motherhood - My personal experience



In the above pic is myself and my beautiful baby daughter Meeka, born 19 April 2008.

I Thank God for having survived my addiction problems, so I can be a role model to her, There is not a day in my life that I do not struggle as a single parent.
There are days that I just feel like giving up but remain positive and draw strength from Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

Being a parent has many rewards I wouldn't trade motherhood for anything in the world, each and everyday is a new experience.

I Thank God for my blessings.

"Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward" (Psalm 127:3).

Launch National AIDS Helpline Mobile Instant Messaging service


Today will be the launch of our hard labour over the past few weeks providing National AIDS Helpline with the technology to offer mobile counselling service to thousands accross South Africa. Why this is such wodnerful opportunity? Interesting facts about South Africa:

1. Highest number of HIV+ people in the world
2. Most unequal countries in the world
3. Best technical infrastructure in Africa, especially cellphones

"Massive potential to use cellphones to provide communication & info services to millions infected or affected by HIV"


We salute the world's first HIV/AIDS Mobile Counsellors as we looking forward seeing how communities will be reconstructed through the use of technology.

National AIDS Helpline counsellors are available Mondays to Thursdays 3-5pm. Add the contact redchatzone@gmail.com (Jabber) or redchatzone (Google Talk) and nickname: Red Chat Zone.

Drug Advice Support going strong


Looking back at how the project has grown not just in number of subscribers but also our advisors on the Drug Advice Support (DAS) is so encouraging. Today as the guys were setting up (see image above) and getting ready to run DAS it is so exciting to see the passion that our advisors have to reconstruct the lives of thousands of people accross our nation. I know that the sacrifices the advisors have made are not in vain and we are seeing the fruits of their labour.

A year ago the team offering advice support on DAS
Well done to the Reconstructed Team for changing the world of citizens of our nation using technology.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

National AIDS Help Line on MXit



Today we started a world's first by offering training to the National AIDS Help Line using our Advice Support technology to offer counselling via Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM). This Pilot is supported by Cell-Life, HIV organisation Right To Care and PEPFAR which will allow for this service to be fully funded for the duration of the Pilot. What this mean for the National AIDS Helpline is that it would be now the only organisation in the world to offer counselling with regard to HIV/AIDS using Mobile Instant Messaging using the technology (see image below)that was developed by a community on the Cape Flats in the Athlone Living Lab.

The first day went well as we introduced the future mobile counselors to "The Art of Mobile Counselling" and "Mobile Phones for Social Good". The training is being done by myself and Craig Ross, member of the Reconstructed Team, and will keep you updated on the progress of the week. Also look out for a post on the "Art of Mobile Counselling". To add the National AIDS Help Line on MXit you do the following:

1) Add Contacts
2) Got to Jabber or Google Talk option
3) ID: redchatzone@gmail.com (Jabber) or redchatzone (Google Talk) and Nickname: Red Chat Zone
4) Accept Contact

This service will be live Mondays to Thursdays between 3pm and 5pm.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

When they see,they believe

I was walking from the shop last nite,a bit late.When two guys were approaching,I was'nt taking note until the one stopped infront of me put out his hand and from under his hoody I heard my name.It was two of my friends I use to do drugs with.We spoke and I encourage them,but most of all,they encouraged me,by saying that they see hope when they see me,keep strong they said and dont forget about us

When they see,they believe

I was walking from the shop last nite,a bit late.When two guys were approaching,I was'nt taking note until the one stopped infront of me put out his hand and from under his hoody I heard my name.It was two of my friends I use to do drugs with.We spoke and I encourage them,but most of all,they encouraged me,by saying that they see hope when they see me,keep strong they said and dont forget about us

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Interview with Reagen Allen in local news paper

LIVING in a household where drug abuse is prevalent can have destructive repercussions on those who do not succumb to the force of drug abuse.

Drug abuse is known to corrode family relationships; said Reagen Allen 24, who now works as a debt counsellor/paralegal, a company he formed with a partner

It creates a situation of hopelessness and family members often feel helpless, desperate and totally out of control when those close to them abuse drugs. A stable family life, Reagen pointed out, is something that communities should uphold and anything that militates against this, including drug abuse is not good and therefore needs to be redressed.

Reagen Allen grew up in a community where, statistics revealed, some of the highest drug related cases in the whole of Cape Town. He himself having a father and older brother addicted to drugs and participating in it together, which is not a normal family tradition, has affected his mother greatly to the point that she had to be hospitalised a month before he wrote his final matric exams. Reagen started to bunk school as a result of his home circumstances. He grew despondent about life and at the age of 18 started using drugs. After two years, being addicted to drugs, he realised that his life was not heading towards a positive outcome. A concerned neighbour consulted a counsellor to address Reagen regarding his drug addiction. Reagen said that he saw the reality of drug addiction as a serious dilemma in communities. The situation needed to be addressed in order to stop the escalating number of teenagers experimenting with drugs.

Matriculating from high school with exemption, touring Sweden to partake in an international youth soccer tournament, did not deter or give him any hope for the future. When posed with the question of wanting to give up drugs, Reagen in 2005 voluntarily said yes to the help and assistance provided by Impact Direct Ministries, an organization that was started in 2001.

It soon become clear, however, that the problem was prevalent enough to warrant the establishment of a team focused on helping drug addicts gain control of their lives. Reagen formed part of this group, called the “ The Impact Team” , himself being an introvert in every sense of the word, really had to come to the fore as this team where involved in various activities raging from life skills to spiritual and moral awakening in schools and communities, which called on him to talk in school assemblies.

Pastor Roger Petersen, the Director of Impact Direct Ministries, according to Reagen, played a major role in nurturing, developing and guiding him towards higher heights. Reagen said, he could not see himself as becoming somebody in life and really had to just listen to Pastor Roger, without trying to understand and figure out when and how his life would plan out.

Currently completing his second year as a law student, holds a Para-legal diploma and is also the youngest registered debt counsellor in South Africa, Reagen can softly smile and have a look in his eyes that echoes confidence, determination and courage to succeed in life and more importantly to take along with him as many other teenagers trapped in drug abuse.





The Impact Team’s work has different focus areas. Firstly, there is a role in the preventative program, always a fundamental aspect as this addresses the person before he/she experiments with drugs by informing those at risk of the implications and dangers of drugs.

The second area is training, aside from facilitating training, the Impact Team also receives training to better equip themselves with the necessary skills to counsel and direct other young people.

Other aspects involve discipleship and they strongly teach that God is a multi-generational God, and in discipleship this can be fulfilled where fathers and sons can walk together in unity towards a common goal instead of a father and son smoking drugs together and thus affecting the whole family, which leads to the detriment of communities, cities and countries.

Reagen started a Debt Counselling Company with a partner to assist over-indebted consumers by restructuring all their debt obligations.

There is HOPE!!!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Learning more

Im fairly an old fashion guy and was never really interested in new technology. So computers I tried to avoid but I soon realized that I too need to change or be left behind. There is so many things happening in the computer world that its really not good to not be clued up. Im getting there and im very optimistic about learning more. I was at a Media Conference last Saterday and I did not understand a single word that was shared that day. So when everyone was getting excited about something, I got excited but I guess the more I spend time learning about technology the easier it gets.

great

two weeks ago i thought that i going to fail my so and then my sir told me that i must not give up that easily and i thought to myself that i no that i can do it and it came to mind that there is still
hope and the next morning i went to school and we wrote our last workshop test and i gave it my
best and u know what i actually got 80 percent for my test and i was so happy that i achieved that
and wen my mother heared about that she was very happy.

My Studies

My Studies Finally Comung to an End
I have been studying for the past six months at a Hospitality School in Ottery,I have a passion for serving and taking care pf others needs...when I was younger I always had a thing for cooking and serving but never really took note of it.My dreams came true when one night whilst I was listening to a programme on A Chritian Radio Station...it was about giving young people a chance to use their gifts that God has given them.I was really interested in the whole idea so I took the details of the College and contacted them and the rest was history.
Now six months later I am trained in the Hotel trade I know how to serve people,create a business plan and how to treat my clients and the importants of customer satisfaction...I am really amazed by how God works He has really blessed me so much,now I am going to use that with which He blessed me and bless others.

school

my past few weeks were great and i never new that i was going to go to cape peninsula university
technology and it was so amazing they were talking about social media and they were talking about
google and how many people log on to it so i was very excited for it

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

CPUT media conference 2009

The Cape Peninsula University of technology (CPUT) media is an annual one day event. http://api.ning.com/files/pwR43Tpu48RWLkztKy-1uFkoTNDZaBQJBdfGWvghaEXCD0gA9lthLObPzOzilIieqoJXfXQJwk8C6oMJ69l154KyS2oGXKYr/justinhartmancredit_finweek_magazine.jpg

I had the privileged of attending the 11th annual conference themes online and the purpose of the conference was to establish a relationship between student and the media industry and how they operate.

Here is an overview of the days event.

Andrew Rens – topic- open source co-operative creativity in the knowledge economy.

Heidi Schneigansz – topic- search engine optimization

Matthew Buckland -topic – incubation online innovation the 20fourlabs story.

Adriaan Pienaar – topic – The experience web: why customers service can make or break a start up

Tyler Reed – topic – mobile is it.

Justin Hartman – topic- Afrigator and Gatorpeeps

Marlon Parker -topic - Using social media to affect social change

The topic that stood out for me besides the one of Marlon Parker (I’m working closely beside him as presented) is Justin Hartman the managing director just as he explained how Afrigator started while listening i realized that i had the same idea but on a different platform.

Many thanks to CPUT for a well organized event that got me motivated to out my ideas into practice.

A year of Drugs, Sex & Mobile Phones

One year has passed and so many things has happened since we "officially" launched Drug Advice Support (previously known as idmtalk). Drug Advice Support (DAS) is one of our large projects, part of our Living Lab activity, and it emerged out of a need in a community that were experiencing the scourge of drug addiction and violence. Using men and women from the community we started a journey that will change our lives and thousands others forever. This service uses mobile phones as a medium to connect with people all across South Africa offering advice and support to those in need (Mobile Active description of DAS).

Since then we've been in more than 50 articles (that we are aware of!!), 3 television appearances, more than 20 radio interviews and we still believe that we have so much to offer of how technology can be used to make a difference in the lives of many. We've had our server crash, got a team from UWC (Wesley and Paul) using the Chisimba platform as a basis for DAS to co-develop with the community a system that could support the large number of requests. With 19 registered advisors (4 Full time)who all come from the local community of Bridgetown, Cape Town, South Africa the following are some indication of what was achieved during 250 hours online (31 July 2009):

- Number of Subscribers: 9,193
- Number of Messages: 746,440
- Number of Conversations : 30,685
- Number of Conversations related to drugs: 18,963
- Average number of conversations per session: 30,685 / 250 hours = 122.5 per hour or 245 per session
- Maximum number of conversations 473 and the Minimum 21
- Average number of Messages = 1422 per session (Max 3678, Min 234)
- Average number of conversations per Advisor in a session = 24 (Min 4, Maximum 56)


Other interesting statistics were:

- TiK (Crystal Meth) was the most popular drug with 6637 related conversations followed by Heroin with 3223.
- 13% [1211] of subscribers were using this service to get support for a family member.
- 4% [403] of Subscribers are getting offline help/support or counselling after using the service (This is known cases through feedback conversations).




This clearly shows us an example of where mobile phones can be used for social good and make the difference in the lives of literally thousands in a nation. Bare in mind that all this was done with very little resources bu a group of extraordinary individuals passionate about reconstructing their communities.
So through all of this we cried and laughed together, celebrated when DAS subscribers were victorious and saddened when they were struggling, but we've made it and we are still standing. So what makes this year so special that others want to read or hear about it? Simple it is about people caring about other people and giving the little that they have to see lives being Reconstructed. A special thanks to the team of DAS who makes this more than a project of Drugs, Sex and Mobile Phones, but one of where we united can make a difference in our communities and nation.