Development Talk

Gugulethu youth take part in development

 

July 19, 2010

A Gugulethu Youth discusses some key issues. Photo: Gugulective via Flickr

A Gugulethu youth discusses some key issues. Photo: Gugulective via Flickr

The youth of Gugulethu are very involved in political and civil society organisations. In fact, the majority of youth participate in development issues in this township situated 15km from Cape Town. This is exceptional in an era where youth are often thought to be apathetic.

The involvement of youth in the community of Gugulethu is largely due to the work of the Gugulethu Youth Development Council (GYDC) which has been operating in the area since 2008.

The Municipal Wards of Gugulethu came together to form a relevant vehicle that will help youth to take active part in development. They looked at the challenges that are faced by today’s youth and established the Council.

The Council members want to see young people of Gugulethu working and going to tertiary institutions. Their goal is to inspire youth to be  energetic, passionate, focused and hungry for success.

GYDC is an umbrella organisation that represents youth from different sectors for example Sports, Politics, Arts and Culture, Safety and Security, Social Services, Health, Education and Agriculture, to name a few.

The goal of this organisation is to promote and protect different cultures in Gugulethu. The Council is very committed to this goal; in 2008 they mobilised young people from high schools and primary schools to march against xenophobia.

Youth development is of great importance to Creative Consulting & Development Works. Two of our team members have been trained to deliver life skills education to youth; we were contracted by the City of Cape Town to present a cultural diversity workshop to disadvantaged youth; and we have also before worked with Mamelani Projects, which runs youth development programmes.

Filed under: CREATIVE CONSULTING & DEVELOPMENT WORKS, DEVELOPMENT WORKS, Employment, Government, South Africa, Training, civil society, community, cultural issues, development, education, inspire, politics, sport, xenophobia, youth — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — admin @ 4:15 pm

The importance of the soccer ball

 

June 28, 2010

Jabulani ball Photo: www.jabulaniball.com

Jabulani ball Photo: www.jabulaniball.com

Quite a lot of controversy has surrounded the Jabulani ball, designed by Adidas to be the official match ball for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

According to jabulaniball.com regular balls are made with 32 hexagonal panels. The Teamgeist ball used in the 2006  World Cup in Germany had fourteen panels and the Jabulani ball only has eight. This makes for a very round ball.

Complaints

At the  beginning of the World Cup in South Africa, Brazilian striker Luis Fabiano called the ball “supernatural”, because he thought it unpredictably changed direction when traveling through the air, according to Wikipedia.  Some goalkeepers also complained that the ball was difficult to handle. The ball was blamed when very few goals were scored at the beginning of the tournament, but after Portugal beat North Korea 7-0, Portugal’s coach Carlos Queiroz said, “We love the ball.”

There have been some great goals by strikers and some great saves by goalkeepers so far in the tournament, so it seems that problems with the ball were either exaggerated, or that players have now gotten used to the Jabulani.

Balls for all

Alive & Kicking ball Photo: www.aliveandkicking.org.uk

Alive & Kicking ball Photo: www.aliveandkicking.org.uk

While these Jabulani balls are being sold for about R1000.00 elsewhere in Africa a charity called Alive&Kicking is producing hand-stitched leather balls, so that children who have never gotten the chance to play with a real ball can finally do so.

The late founder Jim Cogan saw a man in Tanzania on the side of the road stitching a ball, stopped to talk to him and the concept was born of an organisation that would give balls to children, jobs to adults and health education to all.

Alive & Kicking employs local people to stitch soccer balls.  Health messages are printed on the balls and some of the stitchers are trained as HIV peer councilors. The charity believes every child should have the right to play. In our post on street soccer you can see the home made balls that children in Africa make to entertain themselves. Alive & Kicking wants to give each child in Africa a real ball to play with.

And there have been no complaints about the quality of these balls! The website says: “Alive & Kicking balls are hand stitched out of local leather. They are tougher than imported synthetic balls, last far longer on rough ground and therefore give children in Africa lasting fun.”

Watch a video on how the Alive & Kicking balls are made:

Filed under: 2010 World Cup, Africa, CREATIVE CONSULTING & DEVELOPMENT WORKS, DEVELOPMENT WORKS, Employment, Entrepreneurs, HIV/AIDS, NGOs, South Africa, Training, Videos, access to health care, children, development, education, healthcare, marginalised, poverty, sport, youth — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — admin @ 12:25 pm

New study on mobile phones as data collection tools

 

January 18, 2010

Ordinary South Africans can be trained to collect research data using cellpones

Ordinary South Africans can be trained to collect research data using cellpones. Photo by: Kiwanja.net

A new study has identified how more ordinary people from rural and peri-urban areas can become involved in research, simply by using their mobile phones.

Currently there are a couple of organisations in South Africa that train people at grassroots level to collect data for research projects. This is an excellent way to uplift these people and create job opportunities.

All over Africa, health research done with the help of mobile phones is increasing. Creative Consulting & Development Works recently wrote a newsletter article about this phenomenon, referred to as mhealth. To read the article, click here.

The most recent study on mhealth in South Africa (published December 2009) entitled The use of mobile phones as a data collection tool: A report from a household survey in South Africa, set out to “investigate the extent to which community health workers with little experience of data collection could be trained and successfully supervised to collect data using mobile phones in a large baseline survey”.

Local women from Umlazi, close to Durban, hired as community health workers, were contracted by the researchers to collect data. None of the 24 women had any previous experience of data collection, but all had mobile phones and could SMS. They received 2 days of training using the software installed on their phones.

Researchers can check the quality of data collected more easily using mobile phones

Researchers can check the quality of data collected more easily using mobile phones. Photo by: Rachel Strohm

Over the course of four months, 39,665 households were surveyed by these women. There were no hardware or software failures using the mobile phones.

The researchers found that the benefits of using mobile phones for data collection are as follows:

  • Quality checks could be performed in real-time, and inconsistencies could be detected and rectified in a timely manner.
  • The automated graphs and reports allowed the project manager to see how many surveys were completed on an hourly or daily basis.
  • Data falsification could also be detected. If an unrealistic number of surveys were completed in a specific time, the project manager would be alerted that something is not right.

And of course, the income it generates for unskilled workers used to collect this data, is very valuable.

The researchers came to the conclusion that this is a “feasible method of data collection that needs to be further explored”.

Read more about the study here.

Filed under: CREATIVE CONSULTING & DEVELOPMENT WORKS, DEVELOPMENT WORKS, Employment, Research, Software, Training, access to health care, community, healthcare, technology, women — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — admin @ 1:23 pm

If you love software, set it free

 

June 1, 2009

 
NGOs, CBOs, small business owners and even government are increasingly making use of Free Libre and Open Source Software.

NGOs, CBOs, small business owners and even government are increasingly making use of Free Libre and Open Source Software.

If you still think that FLOSS is just something you do after you have brushed your teeth, you have not yet joined the ranks of those realising the benefits and potencial of  Free Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS).

Free means the software gives you freedom, but it is not necessarily always cost free. With FLOSS you can view the source code of a program and if you have the technical know-how, you can alter that code to enhance the program. With proprietary software the code is hidden. You are also allowed to copy and share Free and Open Source Software and do not need a registration code, as is the case with proprietary software.    

The Free Software Movement, consisting of people who believed that if you love software you should set it free, started in the early 1980’s.  It culminated in the Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985 by Richard Stallman. They are dedicated to promoting computer users’ right to use, study, copy, modify and redistribute computer programs.  

Groups working on a tight budget such as non-governmental organisations, community based organisations and small businesses are increasingly making use of this type of software. Even government has realised the potencial of FLOSS, announcing in 2007 that they would migrate to Free and Open Source Software. However, they have not fully implemented the use of FLOSS yet.  

Free and Open Source Software can also be used for education in resource-poor schools and by entrepreneurs trying to make a living.  Members of Development Works team were trained in Joomla which is Free Libre and Open Source Software

Members of the Development Works team attended Joomla training conducted by the organisation FLOSSnet last week. Joomla is Free and Open Source Software used to design and manage websites.

     

Filed under: CBOs, DEVELOPMENT WORKS, Entrepreneurs, NGOs, Small Business, Software, Training, development, education, governance, internet, media, technology — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — @ 12:58 pm