SA Rocks

Disclaimer: This is going to be an exceptionally geek-orientated blog post but those of you who are interested in the new world happening right would be mad to not read on!

South Africa has been chosen as one of the nations taking part in a world wide fundraiser called a Twestival. The event is basically run from organisation orchestrated on Twitter, the micro-blogging platform.

Here is what the main Twestival website has to say:

Tweet. Meet. Give.

On 12 February 2009 175+ cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals which bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.

Johannesburg and Cape Town are the two local venues taking part in the global event. Other African destinations include Lagos and Lusaka.

The JHB event will be held at Cappello’s in Sandton on Feb 12th at 19:00. All other events around the world will also take place on Feb 12th.

The charity that we are trying to raise money for and assist in their quest is Charity: Water
From the website: “Most of us have never really been thirsty. We’ve never had to leave our houses and walk 5 miles to fetch water. We simply turn on the tap, and water comes out. Clean. Yet more than 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have clean water.
It’s hard to imagine what a billion people looks like really, but one in six might be easier. One in six people in our world don’t have access to the most basic of human needs. Something we can’t imagine going 12 hours without.
Here, we’d like to introduce you to a few of those billion people. They are very real, and they need our help. They didn’t choose to be born into a village where the only source of water is a polluted swamp. And we didn’t choose to be born in a country where even the homeless have access to clean water and a toilet.”

I think that this is a very valuable charity to be supporting and even if you don’t, it might be nice for you to get out and meet some of the people who tweet non-stop and it might be nice for some tweeters to get out into the real world and meet some non-tweeters. (I can completely understand how absolutely crazy this entire blog post sounds to those who don’t make use of the word “Tweet” in everyday conversation.)

This is a worthy cause couple with a different sort of event that just might turn out to be fun and help others. So when tickets go on sale, get them!

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One of the perks of running SA Rocks is the letters to the editor that I receive. This is one of those letters, one of those moments when people realise that the world is bigger than them and their immediate actions.

Hi Nic

As a major supporter of my home country South Africa, I felt the need to write this, I suppose just to make people aware of the people that actually do work hard in this country without any recognition. Because I truly do believe that SA Rocks!

I was out in Cape Town the other night and we were going to a night club, we took for granted the free entrance that had been organised for us, and we took for granted that we would be able to spend the night drinking and partying with good friends. However, in the car on the way to the club I realised that not everyone finished work at the standard 5pm. It was raining out and it seemed that a lot of the drains in the Rondebosch/Claremont area were blocked. They could just be left like that but instead, the council had sent a team of workers out, in the rain, to clear these blocked drains.

These are all people with friends and family, walking faceless and nameless beneath their rain coats on the city streets after 9pm, ensuring that our country is kept in shape. While we were underneath the club lights, they were beneath the street lights. You will see them in other forms too- the men emptying your bins during the week, the men fixing broken electricity poles in storms late at night and all the people who remain anonymous but keep our lives running smoothly often while we sleep.

It then dawned on me how many people we actually have in this country that do work hard, that do care, that don’t expect any recognition and that just want to support themselves and their families. We often berate car guards for being a nuisance and there are the drunk ones who are not employed by companies who are an irritant.

However, the guys employed by companies are always there, rain or shine, and all they want is a small tip in recognition for their work. I have on many occasions been one to complain about car guards, but then again what do I know about their lives? How do I know what they go through every day to get to work and support their families?

I have seen it in other forms as well. Not long ago I worked for a short time as a delivery person and had to deliver alcohol and drinks to various companies in Cape Town. While office workers sit in their offices and enjoy food and cool drinks from the canteen, they don’t realise the guys and girls who work behind the scenes to deliver these goods direct to their offices and the strenuous physical labour they endure for minimal pay.

I guess this is just to say that there are people out there working hard to ensure our well-being, but we just don’t take the time to acknowledge them.

So in a small manner, this is my acknowledgement to the teams of guys and girls who keep our country great.

Keep it up, there are people thinking of you.

Regards

Sean

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I just read about the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. It’s a bit in depth but can be simplified.

The Facebook group simplifies it fairly well so I wont try to do it better:

[The Declaration] is designed to echo the disruptive effect that open source had on the proprietary software world by opening up the development and distribution of educational materials.” The declaration calls for more educational materials to be open sourced and freely shared (like MIT did), and says that “all taxpayer-funded educational resources should be open.

That makes sense to me. Let knowledge be freely available to those who need it. Much like opensource software. Brilliant concept.

Who has initiated this Declaration? None other than Mark Shuttleworth himself. The Shuttleworth foundation is behind the Declaration.

It is a global attempt to make educational resources freely available based on an opensource concept. Why the name? Simple, the Shuttleworth Foundation is headquartered in Cape Town.

From the Declaration:

This emerging open education movement combines the established tradition of sharing good ideas with fellow educators and the collaborative, interactive culture of the Internet. It is built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint.

Get on over to the site and sign the Declaration as an individual or sign it as an organisation.

Once you’ve signed be sure to head over to the Facebook group to keep up with the project and it’s developments.

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