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Open Data revamps Durban city websites

March 2, 2018 By Admin

Image: Sophie McManus, Programme Lead (far right), meets with a group of students from the School for International Training (SIT).

By Hannah Green

What would happen if it was possible to text the government and receive a personal response? What changes would we see if community information was recorded and distributed in a more accessible manner? What would be the impact of teaching data analytics in school?

These are the types of social data questions the team at Open Data grapples with.

Open Data is a non-profit civic technology lab located in Durban. The organisation’s mission is to share knowledge in mediums and languages that are accessible to all citizens. They recognise that technology can play a role in connecting people and communicating important information. Their final products can take the form of graphics, websites, reports or workshops that share research results with local communities.

“What we start with isn’t a platform or a tool or a solution. We start with a problem. It starts from capturing user needs,” explained Sophie McManus, Programme Lead. She said that Open Data’s projects usually arise from concerns raised by the government, non-profit organizations, and the media or community members.

One of the team’s current projects, codenamed Durban Answers, is to revamp local government websites. McManus said that ordinary people found the current sites difficult to interact with and lacked information needed by the public.

“We are going to take all the information on government websites and turn it into a more usable format,” she explained. To do that, Open Data needs to collect information on what people want to know.

For this, Open Data uses methods like SMS polls but McManus also noted that technology excludes many South Africans.

“Many people have the problem of access to Internet or to data. They have, I believe the term is ‘dummy phones,’ that don’t have (web) access,” she said, “What we have found is that people who have access to technology and are comfortable using it are the people most likely to answer in our campaigns.”

As a result Open Data has taken information gathering offline, holding meetings and workshops for each project. Recently, the Durban Answers project team met with a range of people, from fishermen to businesspeople, to see “what information they need and how we can bring it to them,” according to McManus.

The team also holds workshop throughout the year to engage techies and non-techies alike. Their monthly meet-ups feature guest speakers, hackathons and collaborations on projects. McManus said that this promotes Open Data’s mission to be accessible to all South Africans.

You can read more about Open Data, explore their meet-up schedule and share project ideas with the organisation here.

Hannah Green

Photo of the day: 1 March 2018

March 1, 2018 By Admin

Located on Hambridge Drive in Durban is “ICare”, a non-profit organisation dedicated to addressing the challenges facing street children in South Africa. Pictured is ICare’s project manager, Lucia Shange. Having grown up in foster homes herself, Lucia has a keen concern for children’s issues and works to realise street children’s potential. The ICare team runs a preparatory programme at their starter site, where participants are introduced to values of discipline, self-awareness, and trust, before transitioning into a 12-week rehabilitation program at a temporary housing centre. ICare’s end goal for participants is to reintroduce them into family life, to provide funding for a stable education and to inspire young men to achieve successes they may not have thought possible. “Hard times don’t last long, good times last forever,” Shange tells those in her care.

— Madeline Harvey

Learn more about ICare, its partners, and how to get involved Here.

Photo of the Day

Police raid home of author Jacques Pauw

March 1, 2018 By Admin

WATCH: Hawks raid home of author Jacques Pauw

Hawks members raid Jacques Pauw’s home — video via News24

On Wednesday afternoon, Jacques Pauw, South African author of the book, The President’s Keepers which examines former president Jacob Zuma’s years in office, had his home raided by three members of the Hawks police unit. The raid received widespread news coverage in local media and prompted criticism from media freedom lobbyists. The South African National Editors Forum has said it will request a meeting with new police minister Bheki Cele to protest the raid. After obtaining a search warrant from a Cape Town magistrate, the officers arrived at Pauw’s home looking for documents. The search relates to charges laid against Pauw by the country’s State Security Agency (SSA). Pauw cooperated with the police.

News of the Day

Photo of the Day: 28 February 2018

February 28, 2018 By Admin

Today the students from the Spring 2018 SIT programme based in Durban, South Africa, spoke with Sophie Macmanus from Open Data Durban. Open Data Durban is a non-profit open-information-advocacy organization based in the city that aims to ensure easy access to information for citizens. Sophie gave us an overview of the purpose of the group and also explained some of the projects they’re working on.

— Jackie Flynn

Photo of the Day

Yussuf Adam on the assassination of Ruth First

February 27, 2018 By Admin

By Jacqueline Flynn

MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE— “It took one-second and boom. I don’t know how I did it, but I broke through the door,” says Mozambican academic Yussuf Adam as he describes the day almost three decades ago when his friend and colleague Ruth First was assassinated.

First was assassinated in 1982 when the ANC was working out of Mozambique and was being aggressively pursued by the South African Apartheid government. A parcel containing C-4 explosive was delivered to the office where she and Adam were working.

Adam, now a faculty member at the Centre for African Studies at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, said First’s committed political activism and her role as a journalist and writer in South Africa meant she was targeted by the South African government. In South Africa at various times she had been banned, arrested and held in solitary confinement. She remained in the sights of the South African government after she moved back to England, and then to Mozambique where she became research director at the Centre for African Studies.

Though many details of Ruth’s death are still unknown, the man responsible for making the bomb has been identified as Craig Williamson. Adam states that Williamson won’t say who gave him the orders but that the government of Mozambique has talked with him several times.

In a meeting with Adam last week, he described First as a larger than life personality. “She would walk into a room and everyone payed attention to her. She would ask you about everything — even your dog. Why would she care about my dog?” Adam said.

First was a mentor to Adam and an adored friend.

Reflecting on the violence of the period, Adam stressed the importance of preventing war again. Adam said, “No matter what you study: biology, journalism, mathematics: it’s all a study of different forms of reality for us to live together. That’s the biggest thing: to prevent war again.”

Read more on Ruth First here: http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/ruth-heloise-first

Taken by Hannah Green, Yussuf Adam giving a tour of Eduardo Mondlane University to a group of SIT students.

News of the Day

Photo of the Day: 26 February 2018

February 26, 2018 By Admin

The Matola Raid Monument is located on the outskirts of Maputo, Mozambique. This carefully designed memorial details the role that Mozambique played in supporting South Africa’s liberation movement and the impact that exiled South Africans had on Mozambique. More specifically, it tells the story of the Apartheid government’s raid on Maputo when homes sheltering ANC exiles were bombed in hopes of eradicating the liberation movement from Mozambique and deterring Mozambicans from aiding in the struggle. Pictured above are pillars commemorating the frontline states that supported and protected Mozambique during the period of the fight against the Apartheid government.

Serena Hawkey

Photo of the Day: 24 February 2018

February 24, 2018 By Admin

Nelson Mandela’s capture site is in Howick, about an hour and half outside of Durban. Today, there isn’t much there besides a small museum, a beautiful sculpture depicting Mandela’s profile, and a plaque at the exact spot he was captured. Mandela was driving through Howick, disguised as a chauffeur, when he was captured. He was sentenced to five years jail for having been out of the country illegally, before being put on trial with other ANC activists in the famous Rivonia Trial. It was at the end of this latter trial that he uttered his famous words, “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination … It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” He was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island, eventually serving 27 years in jail.

-Serena Hawkey

Serena Hawkey

The Revival of South Africa’s Rand

February 16, 2018 By Admin

Main image: Currency tracker website xe.com provides a graphic representation of the upward movement of the rand in recent months.

By: Kamilah Tom

DURBAN – Following the resignation of Jacob Zuma as South Africa’s president and the swearing in of Cyril Ramaphosa as the country’s new head of state, the rand on Friday reached its strongest level in three years. 

The dramatic gain, at one point reaching R11.50 to the US dollar, followed the appointment of the new president on Thursday evening, when the former trade unionist turned businessman was sworn into office.

President Ramaphosa, 65, has promised to fight to undo the corruption that the country has endured while under Zuma’s leadership and to gain the confidence of foreign investors by repairing the country’s failing state-owned entities.

The rand is expected to continue to rise following Ramaphosa’s delivery of the State of the Nation Address this evening. The government has indicated that the country’s 2018 Budget speech will be delivered in parliament next week.

Kamilah Tom

Photo of the Day: February 16, 2018

February 16, 2018 By Admin

Authors Christie van der Westhuizen and Melanie Judge in conversation about their writing at Ikes Books and Collectables in Durban. Van der Westhuizen is the author of the recently released book, Sitting Pretty: White Afrikaans Women in Postapartheid South Africa and Judge has recently published Blackwashing Homophobia: Violence and the Politics of Sexuality, Gender, and Race.

– Rebecca Redelmeier

Rebecca Redelmeier

Photo of the Day: February 15, 2018

February 15, 2018 By Admin

Reilly Torres, a student at Occidental College from Denver, Colorado, participating in the SIT Social and Political Transformation programme, shares a memory board project with colleagues during a student session in Durban. The memory boards reflect students’ conversations with their homestay families in Cato Manor about political and cultural topics.
“My project is a generational look at views of the ANC,” said Torres, featuring the political views of her homestay mother, father, sister and neighbor, and includes hand drawn images.
– Hannah Green

Photo of the Day

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Reporting South Africa is produced by US college and university students on an SIT Study Abroad program called “South Africa: Social and Political Transformation”. They are mentored by veteran journalists in a program applying technology and global consciousness to produce high-impact journalism on vital social issues.

Reporting South Africa strives to be a reliable resource for news and information about South Africa.

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