Renjie Butalid

Archive for June, 2009

Going Beyond Borders 2009: I’m walking 150km for Y Care

Posted by renjie On June - 23 - 2009

My friend Ruby, is currently in Botswana volunteering, and will be taking part in a 150km walk and is raising money for Y Care… more information can be found here (or below) … http://bit.ly/OqMZ5

I’m walking 150km for Y Care

Hi everyone, hope life is treating all of you well. Today I’m writing to ask for your support for a fundraising walk I will be taking part in this July. This walk is an initiative of a charitable trust called Y Care, started from an inspiring dream of Dr. Nomsa Mbere to raise funds for organizations in Botswana after seeing the challenges they face when donors restrict how the funds could be used. Y Care Charitable Trust aims to support community projects by empowering local leaders to determine how the money could best fit their needs.

I will be doing this walk with the other Students Without Borders volunteers from WUSC: Spojmai who is working at Cancer Association of Botswana, Maryam from Holy Cross Hospice, and Matt from Stepping Stones International. My best friend is also visiting from Hong Kong and spending part of her annual vacation to do this walk with us. The 5 of us, along with 40 other participants, will be walking 150km on the Makgadikgadi Pans (Kalahari Desert!) over 3 days. Each of us is required to raise CAD 1000 to participate. I would really appreciate your sponsorship for me to do this walk and so the people can continue to do the amazing work they are doing in this country. The name of my personal blog is “I care”. I truly believe if everyone cares a little more, we will have a better world. “Y Care” – together we can show the world that somebody does indeed care.

If you’re interested in being part of this, you can click on the ChipIn widget below and donate via PayPal. Alternatively, I can give you bank information for direct deposit. If you’re unable to donate, please still leave a message and say hi. Messages from back home mean the world to me. Thank you for reading and take care.

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- Young People, Social Change

Clay Shirky: How cellphones, Twitter, Facebook can make history

Posted by renjie On June - 16 - 2009

via ted.com

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- Social Innovation, - TED Talks, - TEDxWaterloo, - Twitter, Photos & Videos, Social Change, Social Media

Net Change Week – Ric Young

Posted by renjie On June - 15 - 2009

via vimeo.com

Ric Young speaks about Social Innovation as part of Net Change Week in Toronto, June 8-12, 2009

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- Community Events, - Social Change, - Social Entrepreneurship, - Social Innovation, - Social Innovation Generation (SiG), - Toronto, Community, Featured, Photos & Videos, Social Change, Social Media

Twitter and the Iran Elections

Posted by renjie On June - 13 - 2009

Changing the way we communicate in a digital world

I was about to go to bed after a long day when I decided to check out what was happening on Twitter. I did notice that there was some discussions taking place around the Iranian elections earlier today. However tonight, even as I write this, the discussion on the Twittersphere seems to have exploded – I currently have 316 tweets in queue on Twitterfall where I am following the hashtags #iran and #cnnfail This is what my Safari web browser currently looks like:

Andrew Sullivan has a great blog post highlighting how Twitter is becoming the communication tool of choice in conveying information to the rest of the world about what is happening in Iran right now, after the government seemingly cut all internet and mobile networks in the country.

Mock not. As the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived. With some remarkable results. Those rooftop chants that were becoming deafening in Tehran? A few hours ago, this concept of resistance was spread by a twitter message. Here’s the Twitter from a Moussavi supporter:

ALL internet & mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout ALAHO AKBAR in protest #IranElection

That a new information technology could be improvised for this purpose so swiftly is a sign of the times. It reveals in Iran what the Obama campaign revealed in the United States. You cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer. They can bypass your established media; they can broadcast to one another; they can organize as never before.

In fact, although I have been reading Andrew Sullivan’s blog for quite sometime (I enjoyed his political commentary, especially during the US Presidential elections last year), I was led to this particular blog post after someone had tweeted it on Twitter. Other news and resources that came to my attention via Twitter are noted below (for those of you unfamiliar with Twitter and how to ‘follow’ conversations around a particular topic, this is what I would suggest: go to http://search.twitter.com/ or http://www.twitterfall.com and search for the hashtags #iran #iranelections)

And a tweet that I completely agree with, via @johnderosa

(NB. By the time I finished writing this blog post, I had 926 Tweets on queue on Twitterfall) (Further NB. It also took me approximately 10 minutes to write up this blog post, where it only takes me on average 15-20 seconds to come up with, and write up a Tweet)

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- Politics, - Twitter, Featured, Social Change, Social Media