By Frerieke van Bree

So glad!

The NCDO (= Dutch Government sponsored funder - www.ncdo.nl) wants to support the Students project here in Africa with 16.580 Euro!

Our fund application receives more and more positive responses…
Besides the NCDO, also The Dutch organization KICI (www.kici.nl) has donated 5.000 Euro. The Dutch ‘Stichting Projecten Zuid-Afrika’ has required more information and will get back to us the end of April.

There is one big ‘BUT’….NCDO will only sponsor the 16.580 Euro when we are able to match it!

Our 16.580 euro is partly covered by the 5.000 Euro from KICI and 1.000 Euro from our great friends Rolf & Klaar (Dutch). We have to raise another 10.580 Euro…YES that is a lot! AND…nothing is impossible…

What are we raising money for? Materials and training: Leadership training to teach students (14-18 years) to know how great they are and what a difference they can make for their own community. The students get trained to use modern technologies (digital camera’s, mobile phones, laptops) to source stories in their communities and publish them online on the http://studentsforhumanity.com website in order to connect with students and donors overseas.

Would you like to know more?
Email us: stichtingumeebee@gmail.com

Would you like to make a donation?
ONLINE via paypal or via our Dutch bankaccount

Read below the testimonial of Rolf, one of our donors…

Last February 2009, we (Klaar and myself) were invited by Frerieke to visit the COSAT school in Khayelitsha.

We were impressed by the spirit and motivation of not only the students but the staff as well! This visit made us see that despite the difficulties and harsh conditions in the townships, there are so many inspired people that want to make a difference!

We are more then happy to give some financial support to an initiative that helps to make this change for the better! Compared to the big organizations, they might not have the fancy brochures, big fundraising campaigns and large projects, but what they do comes right from the heart and maybe they even have more passion and devotion since they are in direct touch with the people!

After all, we are all more or less the same when we are born. But some (like us) are lucky to have a protected childhood and get an education, allowing them to get a job, house and a comfortable life. This while others face problems from day one. That difference does not make sense at all.

For us an amount of money not spent on a new surfboard, television or a vacation, but after all these things would not really make a difference in our lives. But it might just be the money that allows someone else to experience and learn things that might make the difference in his life!

by Frerieke van Bree

I don’t consider myself a real ‘techie’, but I do have a strong passion for technology.
And although the word ‘geek’ is often used in obsessive computer/technology/connectivity situations, looking at the explanation on Wikipedia makes me think: Yes I am a geek. A big one. I am obsessed with combining my passions (humanity, technology, design, leadership). I am a people loving-passion following-intercultural connecting-voices facilitating and human empowering GEEK.

Last year I attended the Web of Change conference in Canada. Being among some of the brightest web focused changemakers from The States and Canada was extraordinary. People like Peter Deitz, Marc Laporte, Michael Silberman and many others inspired me to hold on to the thought that technology can make a difference in the lives of many underprivileged people. Attending the (mostly white) Wordcamp South Africa (a gathering of fans of the open source blogging software Wordpress ) opened my eyes to how big the gap between technology implementation in the privileged (mostly white) and implementation and usage in the underprivileged (mostly black/colored) communities is.
Recently I visited MobileActive08 in Johannesburg. A (to me) very inspiring, but also overwhelming mix of geeks, techies (including Google, Microsoft,..), funders and implementers, who all  make a difference in the world through mobile technology. I was blown away by what is already being done with the mobile phone in the developing world. A few personal highlights: meeting Erik Hersman and getting to know the crisis report enabling Ushahidi and listening to Guy Berger and his Journalism project The News is Coming in Grahamstown, South Africa.

Being at those conferences made me feel like being back at University. Our faculty of Architecture was considered to be the ’soft’ faculty of the Technical University of Delft in The Netherlands, other faculties used to make jokes about the ‘cut and glue’ course we were attending. The 80% male-20% female rate in Delft, being the only girl on our Windsurf association board, living with 4 bright men in a house…it all made me feel like a black sheep in a world of Men and Technology. And after university it was: being a woman in the building industry, being a woman in a (unfortunately still!) predominantly white-male dominated South African society and now I ‘torture’ myself with….visiting technology conferences…

My insecurity at conferences tells me: What am I doing here? Where’s my IPhone/blackberry/apple computer? How do I talk tech? How on earth do I catch up with all knowledge in this audience? It is like being back at University…..I don’t belong here.

Fortunately, my secure and balanced me says: does it matter? My vision is clear, my passion is big.
Go and explore girl, make those connections, learn as much as possible.

Major Non-profit organizations have their own Technology consultant on board and come up with the most creative and innovative uses of technology on the ground. Great. But….
I wonder: How to get the message of what is possible with technology out to the many “heroes in underprivileged communities”??? How to hear the needs and ideas of young brights minds in the developing world??? How to empower Africans by African ingenuity??? How to have Africans say NO to the brain drain? How to have Africa really be in the hands of Africans!!

I enjoyed reading Ethan Zuckermans words on bridge figures {…we need bridge figures, people who can help build connections between cultures. We need xenophiles, people who are interested in the whole world and in building conversations that break out of the homophily trap.}

If people ask me what my secret skill in life is I say I am a connector and facilitator. I facilitate a space where the one can meet the other, where people from The developed West meet the poor South, young meet old, You meet Them, They meet YOU and YOU get to know YOURSELF. I facilitate a space of no judgement, listening and curiosity. A space of fun! and smiles

Back to the title of this blog post: {How To: technology and implementation}

How to improve the implementation of Technology in order to eradicate poverty/empower the underprivileged/bridge the implementation gap?
My two cents…

• Improve the language of technology: right now it is too techie and not easy accessible for all. It can not be read/reached by the communities on the ground that know best what is needed in their village.
• Include (underprivileged) youngsters!! The bright minds of the future should be included in the conversation of today! Let them be inspired and generate ideas!
• Support bridge figures! Give them a feeling of -belonging- in the world of Men and Tech! Create (more) scholarships for fancy conferences!!

I am so happy that I was able to step over my own foolish insecurity and explore and exchange at the above mentioned conferences. Great things come out as a result! Me being the connector enables underprivileged students from Khayelitsha to become mobile reporters on Afrigadget !!!

I promise I will never doubt the impact I am making in the world and the fact that I matter…
I have experienced a shift from ‘not belonging’ to a ‘knowing who I am and what my passion and purpose in life is’
Being a bridge is the best! Thanks COSAT learners! And thanks you Tech-savvy global inhabitants!

By Frerieke

Today, after my wonderful Free WI-FI Friday (the school is on holiday, so no teaching today), after my 2km swim, right there in the sauna of the gym…right there… I just got it….. I really got it…… >> I LOVE PEOPLE. Swimming is my meditation.. I don’t think, just become one with the water and enjoy.

The sauna……the sauna is the place where i start talking to my inner self, the place where i connect with my own mission/vision!

Today, the conversation went like this: “Fre, why do you do what you do? Why love to the world? Why transformation in Africa? Why ‘making a difference’? Are you doing it because you want to be liked? Show of how good you take care of others? Be ‘interesting’ by being different then your friends in the Netherlands? (Haha, lucky me: today the sauna was empty so I could actually say those words out loud..)

And you know what…as much as I wanted to scream: NO I don’t do this work for me….. I actually couldn’t. To be honest… yeah I am doing it for me. I choose the life I am living here in Africa. I choose to be liked, measured by the amount of care for others or ‘the difference I make in a persons life’. (yep..rather this then being liked because of my money, or being liked because I force you to like me)

So my next question to myself was: “Aha you selfish bitch, so what do you really give and how much would you give if there wasn’t anything in it for you?” That is a freaky question. Then I remembered all the great feedback on our website from our students, how much our work matters to them…. and I wondered: the students satisfaction, is that just an extra to my own fulfillment?”And then it came to me… Fre, you love people.

I believe in the goodness of man kind, even the guy attacking me. I believe in people and i believe that each voice matters! And hell yeah…I’ll spend my entire life making sure you all feel loved! And hey… it is such a great ‘extra’ that you’ll like me for it.

The COSAT students > oh yeah do I love them! Creative, eagerness to learn, care for each other and community, the stand in life they take…. To be really honest with you? Nelson Mandela will have some great competition!

The dance of life is magical…

… Talking about dancing….. Please enjoy this video that one of the students made! South African dance!

Hello beautiful people!

Welcome to our new website! Please surf around on this website to see what Love To The World is up to and watch our video! We know that you will be as moved as we are to “do something” in partnership with South Africans rising against the odds!

I have been offering Let Love Lead workshops throughout Kenya and in Johannesburg and Cape Town since November 2007. Starting this month, I will be offering them in partnership with Fre to community-based organizations all over South Africa! This will give us an opportunity to take us all on a journey and get to know the wide variety of people and environments here (officially: 11 languages and over a dozen different ethnic groups). We’ll be making videos and posting them here so that you can come along, meet the people, see the country and CONTRIBUTE to their lives!

This is so exciting! The exponential explosion of lives impacted is what we’re going for, and with your support, we’ll succeed!

Let us know what you think of this video and about what we’re doing as we are YOUR Ambassadors of Love!

Blessings and gratitude!
Anasuya

Welcome and hello!

From the Southern most point in Africa we would like to invite you to join us on our path!

When Anasuya and I met it was sure we had to work together, we just had to find the way to do it.  The past year I have been working (part-time, next to my architecture job) on the Umeebee organization that I’ve started, with the reason to connect donors all over the world with individuals here, using online video to make it a fun and personal experience and give beneficiaries a face and a voice. With her Let Love Lead initiative, Anasuya uses the arts in workshops to empower people living with AIDS/HIV.

We combined our skills and created the Love to the World initiative as a result

Who we’re doing it for? 

1) YOU : we know you would all love to do something good in this world, so we are providing a great way for you to do so! We want to see more changemakers in this world: more people like us, who realise that their individual social action makes a difference!

2) AFRICA : we want to create sustainable solutions for community based organizations here in Africa. With our first activity: 30 workshops we will use the arts to uplift and inspire, to give people their self-love, which is very much needed for them in order to create, to grow, and then work on ways to become sustainable.

Keep an eye on this website and read our daily blog entries with movies, stories and photos of our journeys.  

Come back soon!

Cheers from Cape Town!

Love, Fre (rieke)