Geeky Moms

It took long hours and lots of determination, but we reached the top of the list finally Table mountain  was nominated as one of the Seven Wonders of Nature on the 11/11/2011. Since  May,18, 2011 we the Rlabs crew  worked hard to get as many votes as we could to get The mountain in the top seventh position.

It wasn’t easy but worth it after learning that we need millions of votes and that the mountain was at the bottom of the 28 finalists. The crew went out on a daily basis to get as many votes possible , our target was schools, campuses,malls and were we ever we could get a opening to let people vote. At the same time we had to give back to the community for allowing us to have them vote for table mountain.

So the people could at least leave with an email account and we could inform then how to use the internet mail facililty

Most of the people ware very eager to vote. Some days went better than  other days. At times we had some internet connection issues and gmail would only allow us so sign a certain amount of people up for the day. We had to open more than one point to sign people up with emails like yahoo and webmail too.I must say hard work certainly pays off at the end of the day. One of the platforms people were also allowed to vote on was MXIT, it made our load a bit easier.

Thanks to all those  schools and campuses  and people at the malls who have offered their time to send their votes, we made it yipeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

Agreat view

Badge

From Bloubergstrand

Our Mountain Our vote

Rosewood Primary

Beautiful sunset

Table Mountain

The Mountain at night

Your vote got us there!!!!

Suzanne  twenty four year old mom of  two little boys Trevor aged  five years  and Linden aged two years has spend a

running with the cheetahs

full year at the Rlabs coming for computer lessons every Saturday morning. She is overwhelmed by the team and the way  they have welcomed her into their space. Coming from a gang and drug related Township called  Kalksteenfontein where children as young as eight years old are using drugs , she said her time spend at Rlabs are very precious and it had changed her life.

Prior to coming to Rlabs  she spend her time just sitting at home and trying to find work. Suzanne said she never had any real friends , because where she come from people isn’t very friendly. In her neighborhood all she is expose to is drugs and violence. Here at Rlabs she has learned to communicate with people and became empowered in a great way.

In the area where Suzanne lives children as young as  ten years old have to go out on a daily basis to beg for money so they can have a plate of food on the table in the evening. She says she’s forever thankful to the Rlabs for enriching her life.

A geeky moment

Suzanne marching with Rlabs

Ten year old Candice from Kalksteenfontein

Kalksteenfontein

Candice begging in Cape Town

These moms are the babies of  technology they done their first steps to becoming techno friendly. They  have also shared about their time spend here at Rlabs and how they need to get totally clued up with  what cyber space has to offer. The moms are ready to take it a level up to becoming the geeky moms.

This year has been very rewarding  for these moms they were taught to think out if the box and yes even to take out whats up their sleeves and applying it to their lives. They have learned to blog ,skype and even tweet , What do you know from thinking the mouse is real to navigating their way with the mouse on the laptops here at Rlabs.

On Saturday the geeky moms shared their feelings of  what they have accomplished this year, Melanie one of the geeks shared about her three year old son who was born with  cerebalpalsy,   this was very difficult for her to come to terms with and she was in a depressive  state ever since the birth of her three year old son Caleb. Melanie said Rlabs was the place where she found healing and could have some alone time.

Each of the  geeks got a turn to share  their thoughts and feelings they were  full of gratitude and thanks giving towards the Rlabs team for empowering and enriching their lives with wisdom and friendship, The geeks was the moms who attended the 4.0 classes earlier this year, they will be leaving with two certificates one for mos4.0 classes and another for the advance class. The geeky moms are  very excited for the graduation and cannot wait to dress up. Next year some of the geeks will become facilitators and help with the new moms coming to these classes.

The second last week for the geeks at Rlabs

Lilian Patricia George a seventy five year old mom and grand mother  is one of the oldest women attending the Rlabs

Our 75 year old mom and grand mother

academy. She learned about the academy via Monique and Rene who gave a motivational speech at their club called (University of the third age). Lilian says her interest was to know more about Skype, because  her daughter is living in Canada and had been encouraging her to get herself a laptop  so that they could communicate via Skype.

She said their group gets together once a month and did not know much about technology, this is when Rene and Monique was asked to come and teach the group a bit about social media. Rene shared about RLabs and their role in the community. Monique shared her testimony and they did a live demo with the group about various social media tools.

Lilian said their group then decided to join Rlabs on a Saturday morning to gain more  knowledge on modern

Lilian in class

technology. They are a group of senior folks aged from about 40 years and older.Lilian’s interests was to learn more about Skype, but instead she got more than what she bargained for. Lillian has learned about face book, twitter, blogger, wordpress, flickr,skype,youtube

Lilian says she reads through everybody’s blog posts and end up in bed at 11:30 in the evening. She was one of a few ladies who staid dedicated through out the year coming to classes here at Rlabs.

Lilian also finds the time to come for extra lessons on a Wednesday from1pm-3pm to improve in the areas she is struggling. When I look at Mrs Lilian Patricia George I’m inspired to think a woman her age can cope with learning about  modern technology, she says age is not a barrier for her and her family says she is an inspiration to them.

Lilian at Rlabs academy

Rene played a role in getting Lilian to learn more at the age 75

Monique also helped with giving her testimony.

Lilian when she got married in February 1961

Map for the iRanD4Hope

On Saturday ,November5,2011 was a day of excitement and nerves when Craig Ross and Carla Ferreira did the iRanD4Hope campaign where they had to run from the  foot of Table Mountain to RLabs in Bridgetown, (Athlone). Craig  and Carla started running  at 9:30 am. Their journey took them along the route of  Kloof Street then Buitengracht and Strand Street, on the corner of Strand and Buitengracht at Mike’s Sport they took a ten minute break then proceeded towards Bridgetown.

The pressure was on for Craig as he got to Sir Lowry Road heading towards Woodstock at this point he said he felt like giving up. His body was giving him negative signals. Craig an inexperience runner who never had formal training prior to the campaign said he only had trained for  four days before the Saturday of this race. His only means of training has always been soccer training and that is what made this race possible.

In his heart he knew the time to give up has not yet come ,

The team assisting the runners

because this was for a good course. as he was one of the people who had to come up with some sort of strategy to get funding for a graduation  towards  a community program that is running at the RLabs in Bridgetown. the event was well organised with people creating a buzz via social media and escorting him as he Rand 4 Hope. Craig made it home in 2 hours and fifteen minutes running a 25km race and he did not even look tired when he arrived at the destination at Rlabs. Well done Craig !!!!!!!!

Craig and Carla

Ready for action

escorting the runners

Moment of truth

No easy task

A long way from home

A course with a challenge

Yet to be completed

mission completed

Every body welcoming the runners

Destined for greatness!!!!!!!!!

Rene and Monique featured in the October 2011 issue of the  Destiny Magizine amongst other women where they had to tel their story of how they are fulfilling their destiny.

Monique shared a bit about her role as Shesthegeek on the website  , how important it is to follow tech trends to keep the readers up dated. She also mentioned they empower women  do training workshops and blog about these activities.

Rene said all you have to do is run a blog ,follow your dreams and be open to exploring. Everybody’s born and designed to be creative and innovative. Blogging has changed their lives , they use the tool to share stories of women with whom they’ve interacted with. It makes them feel good about the difference they’ve made in the lives of these people.

They’ve launched a technology blog because they wanted to be different and realised That they’ve been influenced by technology.

This was a fruitful and challenging week each morning members of the Rlabs was picked-up at their various points to come together for the day and add value to lives who will forever be changed. Our day started early and ended somewhat late.

The first two days was difficult for them as we spoke one language and they another, but what really matters is that they got to learn more about social media. Each of our team members got a chance to present a social media tool to these students. That was nail biting moments, nerves seemed to splatter all over the shore, but that didn’t stop us from doing our presentations.

Our last day was very emotional The students said they wanted us to stay some inboxed me and said they felt like crying, asking what are they going to do without us.

Today is the the end of our smfactory here in Khayelitsha Site B ,  We have been training a group of  130 students here at Silulo Ulutho Technologies who came for training every two hours, they were devided into groups of about 20+. Each morning we started the first sessoin at 8 am and ended the last one at 8pm. It was great getting to these  students they enjoyed every new social media tool that was taught to them and asked us to come back the following week again. They even told their facilitator to stop teaching them Excel and Micro softword. It feels great to be part of  an organization who puts a smile in the hearts of so many lovely people.

The students is all very friendly  and willing to learn, they have surely put a smile in my heart and I feel sad to say goodbye.

Site b

RLabs and Silulo Ulutho Technologies

Having fun

Brining in the votes for table mountain

As a team of diligent workers we went out on a daily basis to do the vote for Table Mountain. Our sugeries as we called it started at Water Front in Cape Town, we were fired up and ready to get as many votes as we possibly could. This was on the 18 of May, it was also the day the country had to vote at their different voting stations for new municipalities in the country.  So ya it was voting ,voting ,voting all day long.

We set up the laptops near the food court in a area called Barren court , then some of the group members went and get people to vote for Table Mountain. The people were very friendly and came to vote via email, other methods of voting was used to push for more votes Mxit  and a app via Facebook. This was the first of many surgeries to come. At Rlabs Academy we made telephone calls to various schools and campuses to do the voting thus far we had great success. Five months down the line we’ve learnt that  the votes  had moved the mountain from being at the bottom of the list  to the top at  number eight, all we need now is for the votes to come streaming in so the mountain can be one of the , New7 wonders of nature.

As many of us know now the due date for this campaign is 11/11/2011 @ 11H00.

Loving the moment

Khayelitsha campus

OUR MOUNTAIN OUR VOTE

Voting in the schools

Aasief

FIONA ON OF THE AMBASSADORS FOR THE v4tm Campaign