By kingross on Jun 25, 2010 | In Products & Services | 1 Comment »
In preparation for substance abuse week (which is this week) , Rlabs has teamed up with Mxit to bring drug advice and support to the tip of Mxit subscribers fingers. 28,000 plus subscribers added the Angel Information Service . On Monday the team had to be ready as they did not know how many people would come online seeking advice and support with their substance abuse problems. For the week a 12 hour service session, the following statistics were achieved with a them of 10 counsellors:
- Number of Conversations: 1283
- Number of Messages: 7654
- Average Conversation per counsellor 44
The technology we are using to manage the conversations is JamiiX
By Marlon on Jun 22, 2010 | In News, Technology | 1 Comment »
With the celebration of drug awareness week in conjunction with MXit, RLabs increased its counsellor capacity and had a massive growth in the Angel user numbers. Angel is an information portal providing support to users in the areas of substance abuse, abuse, depression, stress and coping. Today the Angel information service passed the 40,000 subscriber barrier and in conjunction with RED HIV/AIDS information service (60,000+ users) by Cell Life and our various Mobile Counselling services (30,000+ subscribers accross services) RLabs with its partners have reached over 130,000 users via mobile phones for Social Change. This is only the beginning as many more services will be deployed over the next few weeks (via MXit and JamiiX) to bring about social change in Communities in Tension.
Source: Technology for Community Empowerment
By kingross on Jun 19, 2010 | In Projects, Technology | No Comments »
Today we decided to do the Mom3.0 Cafe Session differently. We will be doing it Speed Dating style. Here is just a brief description of what speed dating is.
SPEED DATING: Wikipedia
Speed dating is a formalized matchmaking process or dating system whose purpose is to encourage people to meet a large number of new people.
SPEED DATING: RLABS
The reason for us doing the Mom3.0 session speed dating style is that we want to introduce the moms to as many Social Media sites as possible. This is also a good way of doing recap with the moms and for those that joined the class late.
Melissa Jonhson one of the students says: “I could do so many things today as I had many tabs open. I had my Facebook, Gmail, Blogger and Hootsuite (twitter) open at the same time. This session was so fruitful!” So it seems these new speed dating sessions are paying off and we will be looking forward to having more of them with the moms in the future.
A special thanks to all the moms for attending the speed dating session as this would not be possible without you ladies. And to all the facilitators. Keep up the good work.
By Marlon on Jun 17, 2010 | In Projects, Technology | 3 Comments
Another exciting project that RLabs have been involved in has been the Angel on MXit project where we offer people support and advice in the areas of substance abuse, abuse, depression, debt counselling,stress and coping via their mobile phones. This partnership with MXit Lifestyle will allow us to scale our services and also provide much needed access to all MXit users. The Angel project allows MXit users to “find their Angel” where they can get help for the social issue they are dealing with.
Over the next few weeks we will increase the capacity of our mobile counselling support centre and grow it to support thousands of MXit users across South Africa. Since starting our new campaign yesterday we’ve already attracted more than 23,000 users to the service.
By kingross on Jun 17, 2010 | In News | 1 Comment »
On Saturday Etv Tech Report (Etv) visited RLABS to do a story and some filming on what we are doing and how we are using Social Media to empower our communities. They arrived to at RLABS round about 1.30pm and started almost immediately with the interviews and gathering information as to how RLABS came into existence.
They did an interview with Marlon Parker the founder member of RLABS and then later requested to interview some of the staff and management team. They selected Craig Ross (Innovations Manager at RLABS) and Monique Ross (She’s The Geek, his wife) to tell them more about their stories and how RLABS had helped them in their recovery.
Craig and Monique both come out of a lifestyle of gangsterism and drugs and have amazing testimonies. Most important of all they are using what they have learnt to help others that have been in the same boat they (on drugs) have been. Look out for Etv’s new show and the story of RLABS. Etv will be back at RLABS on Saturday to do a story of Marlon Parker’s new initiative: JamiiX.
