SOCIAL MEDIA AND CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES: A RECIPE TO #SAVEBAGEGA

In October 2012, when the Follow The Money Team were developing their website, little did they know that the hashtag #SaveBagega was going to reach a staggering 600,000 people from over 100 countries. Consequently, putting more pressure on the government of Nigeria to attend to the urgent need of this ailing community.

Bagega is a village community in Zamfara, Northern Nigeria, where 1,500 children awaits urgent medical attention for lead poisoning. "All we had in mind was to create a web platform integrated with social media tools, and write reports (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Storify) that could amplify the voice of these helpless communities" said Hamzat Lawal, co - creator of the non-profit group that advocates, tracks, and visualizes aid meant for local communities.

It's My Birthday in Few Days!!!! YAY!!!!!

My birthday is a few days away and i have decided to do something different this year with friends and family :D

Well, my master plan to make the day splendid is by appreciating the environment for giving me so much and still ask nothing in return and also spend time in the orphanage and plant trees with the children in promoting environmental sustainability while inspiring local positive actions. 

Now, it’s left for us all to take actions to protect our environment by giving back to it.

Kindly join me on Tuesday, March 12 @ Abuja Children’s Home, Karu-Site, Abuja – Nigeria in giving back to the environment & caring for this vulnerable children :) 

Feel free to bring along with you gift items for the children and tree plants.

Cheers!!!!!!!!!!

Japheth Omojuwa: For bloggers only – Part 2 | #SaveBagega

The power of new media realities is that everyone who cares to have a voice now has a voice.

The world has not only changed, that change is in itself increasingly changing. While survival in the old world depended on how well one could think outside of the proverbial box, these days to be at the very top of the world you must do away with the box in its entirety. You don’t need the box. The world is our space and this space is endless. To be at the forefront of the cascading events that define and are redefining the world, we must bench mark ourselves against these realities. Whether or not we move on as a people or country, the world will continue to move forward. It is on this premise that I seek to address the quasi Bloggers who have suddenly realized that Bloggers should not exist in the Nigerian conversation space. I don’t find this funny but I find the part where these same folks use blogs to pass their message across as absurdly funny. It is like posting bills on walls about not posting bills on walls. This is of course not absurd in a place where people use BlackBerry broadcasts to warn people about BlackBerry broadcasts. It is certainly normal to see this as normal in a country where serially indicted public officials emphasize the need for transparency and accountability. This is of course absurd if we benchmark our common sense on the expectations of the world.

Help save 1,500 Children in Zamfara today! #SaveBagega

GOV. ABDUL'AZIZ ABUBAKAR YARI           

HON. BELLO MARADUN MUTAWALLE

HON. IBRAHIM SHEHU GUSAU

HON. MU'AZU B/TUDU LAWAL

HON. LAWALI ANKA HASSAN

HON. DANGALADIMA UMAR SANI

HON. BILIYAMINU SHINKAFI YUSUF

HON. SANI RUWAN DORUWA IBRAHIM

SEN. KABIR GARBA M

SEN. SAHABI ALHAJI YAU

SEN. AHMAD RUFAI SANI

PROFESSOR ONYEBUCH CHUKWU (MINISTER FOR HEALTH)

MRS. HADIZA IBRAHIM MAILAFA (MINISTER FOR ENVIRONMENT)

ALH. MOHAMMED PATE (MINISTER OF STATE HEALTH)

AMB. BASHIR YUGUDU

Despite the massive coverage of the endemic going on in Zamfara State of Nigeria  (Human Rights Watch, HuffingtonPost, France24, Institute of Chattered Chemists, Premium Times, Nigerian Youth Climate Action, Channel4, ThisDay, Follow The Money) nothing concrete seems to be happening. Appeals from Senator bukola Saraki, Doctors without Borders, CSOs and NGO's both international and foreign including bloggers have fallen on deaf ears but as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Doha climate conference diary: youth activists bring energy and urgency

When the US university student Anjali Appadurai lambasted diplomats from 194 countries for their lack of action and ambition at last year's climate talks in Durban, she shocked the UN and galvanised the meeting. She told them:

"I speak for half the world. We are the silent majority. You've given us a seat in this hall, but our interests are not on the table. What does it take to get a stake in this game? Lobbyists? Corporate influence? Money? You've been negotiating all my life. In that time, you've failed to meet pledges, you've missed targets, and you've broken promises, but you've heard this all before."

Young People To World Leaders at COP18: Your Climate Legacy Shapes The World We Inherit.

On Monday morning, negotiators from around the world poured into the Qatar National Conference Center for the first day of the COP18 United Nations Climate Talks, prepared for a long day of speeches on the technical details of multilateral environmental diplomacy. However, as they travelled down the moving walkway between security and the plenary hall they were confronted with the human face of climate change.’

Young people from around the world had flanked the walkway holding signs in multiple languages that reminded negotiators of the terrifying consequences that runaway greenhouse gas emissions have already begun imposing on people and the planet; droughts, hurricanes, wildfires, desertification, rising seas, biodiversity loss, and more.  At the bottom of each sign the youth posed the question “Will This Be Your #ClimateLegacy?”

Chart: Among youth, unemployment is not always the issue

From the World Development Report 2013

621 million young people are “idle”—not in school or training, not employed, and not looking for work. Rates of idleness vary across countries, ranging between 10 and 50 percent among 15- to 24-year-olds.

Source: http://blogs.worldbank.org