Digital solution for Zim Crisis: Mukuru.com
Interesting… an sms/cell phone service has been set up by enterprising Zimbabweans and South African’s in London that enables UK based Zimbabweans and South Africans to easily help their cash-strapped friends and family at home. It’s a voucher-based system – cash is paid over in the UK for a specific service like petrol or fuel at a garage, friends and family are sent an sms voucher to redeem the goods. So in other words, you can buy petrol for your family in Southern Africa in pounds and all they have to do is show the voucher at the garage and fill up with petrol. Author CK Prahalad talks about exactly this kind of notion, how creative digital solutions can help the developing world, specifically in reducing poverty. It’s a great concept – well done guys. Let’s not get bogged down but look for solutions instead. See Makuru here. BBC Africa has more here: Text messages from abroad have never been received so eagerly by cash-strapped Zimbabweans. The “beep beep” signals an end to hours spent queuing at petrol stations. “Hey… you have been sent a Mukuru Voucher for 40 litres of Petrol from…” reads the message. A voucher number follows which allows the recipient to swap the pin number for coupons redeemable at certain garages. This is all the handiwork of Mukuru.com – a website set up by Zimbabweans in the UK to help their fellow countrymen in the diaspora pay for petrol, satellite TV or transfer money to their friends and relatives at home. It properly got off the ground last year, and its customers are steadily growing as news of it spreads. [Click here for rest of BBC Africa article]...
Map of Gun Crime in the world
It’s troubled times for the US as they deal with the aftermath of the 32 people killed at the Virginia Tech. The UK Guardian tells us that the 23 year old Korean sent a video to the NBC after his first rampage. “The Virginia campus killer paused in the two-hour gap between the first and second shootings to post a package containing a video, photographs and a multi-page statement to a US television headquarters. NBC News received the package yesterday and handed it to the FBI. It included a digital photograph of Cho Seung-hui, 23, with his arms spread wide, a handgun in each. He was wearing a black baseball cap backwards, black gloves, and a vest with an array of pouches – the same clothes described by witnesses to the shooting.” More here. Check out this map from CNN (Thanks Aquoibon) here that shows the frightening amount of gun crime in the world. Sadly South Africa fits into the HIGH zone. Eish. Not...
Top African visual artist @ AfroNova
Joel Mpah Dooh lives and works in Douala, Cameroon, and studied fine arts in Amiens, France. He has been showing extensively in solo and group exhibitions in Cameroon, Austria, Senegal, France, Cuba, Lebanon, USA and Kenya. Catch his first ever exhibit in South Africa: JUST TO SAY HELLO… A first solo exhibition of paintings and mixed media works by JOEL MPAH DOOH. Joel Mpah … Dooh is one of the finest artists on the continent and enjoys international critical acclaim with his paintings and multi media works. His recent exhibition Rendez-vous was a definite highlight of the 2006 Dakar Biennale of African Contemporary Art in Senegal. He strongly featured in the Lines of Connections exhibition with William Kentridge, Kendell Geers, Sam Nhlengetwa and Samuel Fosso, organised by the MTN Art Foundation in 2001. With this first solo exhibition in South Africa, Joel Mpah Dooh draws on a retrospective body of works and exhibits a coherent ensemble while evoking years of experimentations. With the kind support of the French Institute of South Africa. Exhibition runs until Saturday 14 October Gallery Hours Tuesday to Saturday 13:00 to 20:00 Contacts email Afronova c: +27 (0) 83 726 59 06 The gallery is just across the Market Theatre entrance Safe parking corner Miriam Makeba and Gwigwi Mrwebi St – Newtown Po box 3205 – Parklands 2121 – Johannesburg – South Africa —————————————————————————————————– FEBRUARY 2006 Get down to Newtown to the Afronova gallery for an exhibition entitiled URBAN JUNGLE: Urban Jungle brings together two prominent artists from the continent; Birame Ndiaye from Dakar, Senegal, and Wayne Barker from Johannesburg, South Africa. Both painters are children of the African city and its collision of cultures. They get down and dirty in the streets, sometimes the back alleys, and venture into the craziness and confusion of the concrete jungle. Exhibition runs until Saturday 11th March Tuesday to Saturday 13:00 to 20:00 Safe parking corner Miriam Makeba and Gwigwi Mrwebi St – Newtown Email Afronova Afronova...
Clothes do not make me African
A true Representer Ur Highness brings up a topic that’s been runnning around quite a bit in our circles… does your style define who you are as a person? Does it mean because I choose to have a weave I am ‘shallow’ or ‘trying to be ‘white'” (that’s a whole nother topic we need to talk about…this white-bashing nonsense – watch this space). Why should I be judged and who are you to jud…ge me? Does what you wear represent your mind and opinions? Surely we should be free to wear whatever suits us without fearing that we are being ‘UnAfrican”? What do you think…? No doubt in your daily life you have run into dreadlocked black brother or sister head wrapped in turban long skirt and the Bob Marley bag,not neccessarily rastafarian but just a “REAL AFRICAN”. But really does all that give the true African sense? Does it seem that some Africans think that they are more African than the other Africans walking past coz he/she has got s-curl& cut or a sister has hair weaves and they don’t go to poetry sessions… they think Skwatta kamp is hiphop and they think Kwani Experience is a new drug? Does how you look, what interests you , who you hang with suddenly give somebody their true African sense? It just seems to me that most Africans who have ever been colonised , are just suffering with their blackness. Yes, in the past we were made to believe our skin is too dark or hair is too curly – it needs to be stretched , and now that we are enjoying the fruits of freedom we do what ever we please with ourselves. So now most of the other Africans who even after liberation still wanted to lighten their skin, strech their hair and dress in western designs are what…. hmmm…. fake (note that all aspects mentioned refer to the external appearance)? In these 21st century revolutions against the system and so forth, do you need a certain look in the revolutionists eyes to get your point taken seriously? Can you be you be considerd to have an African conscious mind if you dont look according to what they perceive to be real African (dreadlocked and all)? Trust me im not hating I am a poet, I got an afro myself and I dont know if I look strange but I manage to get a few stares, mouth gags and giggles here and there . Though I have noticed being around these circles that they manage to outcast and judge people based on how they look or the music...
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