Charlie's Posts - Urgent Evoke2024-03-29T08:20:28ZCharliehttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/Charliehttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2209184989?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=2twyee164bl7b&xn_auth=noSouth African Social Investment Exchangetag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-05:4871302:BlogPost:161752010-03-05T13:42:04.000ZCharliehttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/Charlie
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<div>Just came across this great project:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.sasix.co.za/">http://www.sasix.co.za/</a></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(105, 105, 105); font-family: arial, verdana, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">"The South African Social Investment Exchange (SASIX) provides independent research, evaluation and monitoring to ensure that listed projects meet a set of…</span></div>
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<div>Just came across this great project:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.sasix.co.za/">http://www.sasix.co.za/</a></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(105, 105, 105); font-family: arial, verdana, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">"The South African Social Investment Exchange (SASIX) provides independent research, evaluation and monitoring to ensure that listed projects meet a set of criteria, including the ability to deliver measurable returns. These returns are social rather than financial but they are nonetheless vital for development in South Africa."</span></div>
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<div>I love how transparent the project plans are. I really think this is the way of the future.</div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#696969" face="arial, verdana, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', helvetica, sans-serif" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(94, 94, 94); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br/></span></span></font></div>South African Digital Literacytag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-03:4871302:BlogPost:80822010-03-03T14:11:04.000ZCharliehttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/Charlie
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<div>The social innovators I've decided to shadow are the m4lit project in South Africa.</div>
<div>According to their website:</div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px;">"The m4Lit (mobile phones for literacy) pilot project created a mobile novel (m-novel) and published it (September 2009) on a…</span></div>
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<div>The social innovators I've decided to shadow are the m4lit project in South Africa.</div>
<div>According to their website:</div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px;">"The m4Lit (mobile phones for literacy) pilot project created a mobile novel (m-novel) and published it (September 2009) on a <a href="http://kontax.mobi/" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(34, 119, 221); text-decoration: none;">mobisite</a> and on <a href="http://www.mxit.com/" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(34, 119, 221); text-decoration: none;">MXit</a> in order to explore ways of supporting teen leisure reading and writing around fictional texts in South Africa (SA), using mobile media."</span></div>
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<div>I'm particularly interested in the potential of mobile phones and other digital devices in helping to teach literacy to South African youth.</div>
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<div>My ultimate Evokation will hopefully focus on digital literacy and storytelling as a way of communication and empowerment for South Africans.</div>
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<div>As my previous blog suggests, personally I'd like to move away from the usual stereotypes of "aid" and "philanthropy" in social innovation and using and embracing digital technology is a way of steering us away from the idea of the poor rural African left behind by the modern world.</div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px;"><br/></span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px;">"If mobile phones are a legitimate alternative and compliment to printed literature then their potential for increasing youth literacy practices of reading and writing in SA, and indeed the developing world, is significant. "</span></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px;">Hell yeah.</span></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px;"><br/></span></div>Don't Fight Culturetag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-03:4871302:BlogPost:76362010-03-03T10:00:00.000ZCharliehttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/Charlie
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">"We’ve got bicycles and mobile phones in Africa, plus lots of metal to weld."…</span><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br></br></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">"We’ve got bicycles and mobile phones in Africa, plus lots of metal to weld."</span><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br/></span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">We've also got Mac Airs and Converse Allstars.</span></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">'African' stories are constantly taken from their very specific cultural settings and decontextualised</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">to stand as symbols for the entire continent.</span></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">This is the kind of thing we're subjected to:</span></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-XZk0yxCzc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-XZk0yxCzc</a></span></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">That's not Africa. That's a fictionalised idea of Africa.</span></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">'Africa' is really only a geographical space. Culture is not a single homogeneous unit. It's a diverse and fragmentary mix of language, community, attitude and identity. Understanding this is key to social innovation.</span></div>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Don't let stereotypes mess with your ability to truly interact with people, African or otherwise.</span></div>
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