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Columbus Day from a Native American Perspective – Oct. 12

Many thanks to Nany Kayo for this great information…

Virtual Native Lands will host an observation of the significance of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas from a Native American perspective on Sunday, October 12, 2008, on the beach at Commonwealth.

Columbus arrived in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492 setting off a chain of events that changed the world. The first Columbus Day celebration was held in 1792, in New York City. In 1892. Columbus Day has been celebrated as a federal holiday in the United States on the second Monday of October since 1934, and is also celebrated as a state holiday in all but 17 US states, at taxpayer expense.

For Native Americans, the celebration of Columbus Day is a celebration of a holocaust. People react to this observation in different ways ranging from pride, to defiance, to sadness, or to indifference. Many Native choose to protest the holiday as an insult with varying degrees of irreverent humor or rage. Others feel that the observation of a holocaust is beyond protest. Each person is invited to observe the Columbus Day holiday in their own way at the Commonwealth gathering.

There will be a memorial and celebration of the lives of the Tiano people, who were almost entirely exterminated by Columbus and his crew within a few years of Columbus’ arrival, on the beach. Other meeting facilities on the Commonwealth sims are also available for use for pretty much anything anyone can dream up within legal and prim limits.

Please contact Nany Kayo if you would like to arrange an event.

Written by: Beth J. Bates

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Addictions Treatment in VR

“Are services in the virtual world near?” is an article in this months Addiction Professional Magazine, highlighting Preferred Family Healthcare’s work in Second Life. Addiction Professional is the addiction treatment and prevention field’s premier trade journal.

The article focuses on Dick Dillon’s (Coughran Mayo) work at NPC and his organization’s plans for delivering behavioral healthcare and substance abuse treatment in world. It’s a positive article that will reach lots of healthcare leaders and professionals. Click here to read or here http://tinyurl.com/4r3pyt

Thanks Coughran for mentioning the National Council! That helps us put a shining light on Second Life and NPC for our members, and helps us all. Yay to the power of networking!

Written by: gale.beckwith

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New York teens wanted for Second Life machinima project!

Vvpflyer08_450

I’m excited to announce that Global Kids is starting up again its youth machinima initiative called the "Virtual Video Project."  If you know of a teenager in the New York area who is interested in global issues,  politics, digital media and having fun, then send them our way! Applications are due by October 17.

Students get training in how to use Second Life as a filmmaking platform, decide among themselves a particular social issue they would like to make a machinima about, and then do all of the work to create the film. Our past machinima have won a number of awards and been featured at various film festivals and conferences around the world.

The program runs from October 30 until late June, so it’s a big commitment. The sessions are facilitated by my fabulous colleagues Tabitha and Shawna.

For more information or to receive the application contact shawna@globalkids.org or call 212-226-0130 ext. 143.

Written by: rikomatic

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Draxtor’s report on the USC Public Good Challenge

Here’s another great machinima news report from my buddy Draxtor Dupres.  This time he covers the USC Network Culture Project’s Public Good Challenge in Second Life.  It’s a nice frame for looking at the potential of virtual worlds for more than just commerce and entertainment.

I was honored to serve as one of the selection panel members for the Public Good Challenge.  You can even see a bit of my avatar sitting besides my hero Howard Rheingold.

Good stuff, Drax!

Written by: rikomatic

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Who Can Use the Calendar?

The event calendar belongs to this community! However, if you’d like to add events to the calendar, you need to have special permissions. You can ask Glitteratica, Penguin, or me to set you up! After you have “the keys”, pop on over to the EVENT PAGE. There is a tutorial if you’d need some HELP.

Written by: Creech

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$1000 USD seed funding for youth-led social entrepreneurial ventures in Second Life

DIDI hits SL's Main Grid
Beginning this Fall, Global Kids is excited to announce opportunities for a group of young people to receive $1000 USD in seed funding and social entrepreneurial training through the “Dream It. Do It.” Initiative in Second Life.

The D.I.D.I. Initiative is an exciting partnership between Global Kids and Ashoka’s Youth Venture. Through January of 2009, the D.I.D.I. Initiative is supporting up to 40 teams of young people with up to $1000 USD and tools and training to launch ventures that benefit their communities, either within or outside the virtual world of Second Life.

Overview:
D.I.D.I. empowers young people to identify social and health issues in their communities and to create and lead their own social ventures to address these issues. A venture can be a club, organization, business, or program that is ongoing and benefits one’s community in some way. With the D.I.D.I. Initiative’s support, each team of young people develops an action plan to design and launch their own social entrepreneurial projects. When the teams are ready to launch, the Initiative offers:

  • Seed funding (up to $1,000 per team)
  • Technical allies to provide additional advice and expertise
  • Ongoing tools and support sessions

    For more information, we invite you and your students to stop by one of our info sessions to be held at the Global Kids HQ in Second Life at the following times this week:

      Thursday 9/18, 1pm PDT
      Thursday 9/18, 6pm PDT
      Friday 9/19, 12pm PDT

    http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching/222/165/24

    Should you have any questions, please feel free to email Amira at amira@globalkids.org
    ————–

    Ashoka’s Youth Venture leads an international community of young people who are powerful now, changemakers now. Youth Venture inspires and invests in teams of young people to create and launch their own sustainable, community-benefiting Ventures and then connects them into a global movement of young changemakers who are together redefining the youth years as a time of leadership and positive social change. This is the foundation of an Everyone a Changemaker™ world – the key factor for success in every part of society.

    Global Kids, a non-profit organization based in New York City, is dedicated to developing youth to become global citizens and community leaders. In 2006, Global Kids became the first nonprofit to develop a dedicated space for conducting programming in the virtual world of Teen Second Life (TSL). Within TSL, the organization has established the D.I.D.I. Initiative Island, which hosts interactive, experiential programs for teens from around the world.

    • Written by: rikomatic

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    Kelly Jolkowski (SL: Kellyj Shepherd) to speak about missing persons issues, and how YOU can make an ID kit for your family.

    When: September 28, 2 SL time
    Roughly 45 minutes in length
    Where: NCI — specific NCI campus TDB but probably Caledon

    Kelly and her husband have lived for seven years not knowing what became of their son. After Jason disappeared, the Jolkowski’s found what other families had found and something that is always found out the hard way – that there are few resources for families of missing adults.

    The Jolkowski’s vowed in founding Project Jason ithat no family should have to be left alone and without resources in a heartbreaking situation where time is so critical.

    Just a couple of the many accomplishments: the organization has assisted more than 400 families of missing persons, has distributed more than 50,000 missing persons posters, and has given away 13,500 personal ID kits.

    Kelly will talk about her ordeal with her missing son, the successes of Project Jason as it approaches its five-year anniversary, current programs that let the public (YOU!) get involved in helping to find missing persons, and the importance of creating I.D. Kits for every member of your family. The kits are FREE and Kelly will tell you how to get yours.

    She will also discuss Project Jason’s activities in Second Life.

    Written by: Ronnie

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    Mollom Spam Filter

    The NPC site was getting a fair bit of spam–mostly dealing with World of Warcraft gold–so we’ve decided to install Mollom to the site. Mollom is a spam catching service that will try and determine if your comment is a) spam, b) could be spam, or c) is spam and it takes appropriate action ranging from nothing, to a captcha challenge, to blocking the content.

    Let me know at matthew [at] dogstar [dot] org if you see anything strange. Otherwise, happy posting!

    If you are interested in how to install Mollom on a Drupal website, I have put together a short tutorial on my Nonprofits and Web 2.0 Site.

    Thanks!
    Creech Antwerp / Matthew Saunders

    Written by: Creech

    Posted on

    How to apply for Linden Labs’ Showcase

    Hi everybody! Today I’m going to tell you about my experience with Linden Lab’s Showcase section.

    About two months ago, Mercedes Ochs suggested I try to get my Garden for the Missing on Remora into the Showcase. I wasn’t even sure what Showcase was, so I poked around and found it.

    When you go to that page on the SL website (and I will give you the URLs at the end of this little talk), you will see there are four SL venues spotlighted on the top right of that main page and sublistings of categories on the left.

    So, I applied, having no idea what was about to happen.

    A week later, I was being interviewed for an article in SL Illustrated. We were at the Garden for the Missing and people kept popping in at the rate of one a minute. We’re talking about a venue that, unless I have an event, usually gets about 10-20 on a normal day. I finally asked a visitor where they hear about The Garden for the Missing and he said it was on the Showcase page. It was the featured “Hot Spot” listing.

    The front page listing lasted a week, during which more than 600 people visited the Garden for the Missing. It was crazy. I had Mercedes and Mel helping me greet visitors as much of 24/7 as we could fill. The visitors came nonstop.

    After a week, the listing was moved off the main page to the Hot Spots subpage listing and continues to greet anywhere from 25 to 75 visitors per day. I’d say at this point, between 800 – 1,000 have been introduced to my nonprofit as a result.

    Another cool thing is that when it was replaced on the main page, it was replaced with our own Contact a Family, another nonprofit in NPC!

    These graphics show how the listings look today on the “Hot Spots” subpage.

    One more thing to note is that there were a number of blogs and a couple of articles written about my nonprofit as a result, so the amount of visitors resulting from the Showcase was amazing, but the increased awareness didn’t stop there.

    The Showcase doesn’t approve everyone who applies. But it’s very worth giving it a try. And now, here are your URLs.

    The Showcase: http://secondlife.com/showcase/

    The FAQ: http://secondlife.com/showcase/faq.php

    The “How to suggest” section: http://secondlife.com/showcase/faq.php#five

    Written by: Ronnie

    Posted on

    Nonprofit Participation in NPC: How a Little Strategy Goes a Long Way

    In response to a special request for a BLOG post, below are some suggestions made on the WIKI for enhancing your nonprofit’s participation in the NPC community. These are some small, yet strategic ways to help your nonprofit maintain its presence and take advantage of community-wide events that promote your nonprofit in SL and IRL.

    Below are some very easy and positive ways, aside from coming to weekly
    meetings and your requisite 2 hrs/week, that everyone can help become
    “active” as community members:

    * Special Community Events:

    1. Offer to help in some small way for community-wide events in
    advance (e.g., Ethelred and I drafted the clues to the hunt at least
    one month ahead of time, which took very little time, but was really
    helpful to the organizers);

    2. Take a few minutes to respond to Group Notices by submitting your
    nonprofit information for community-wide events (e.g., for NPC’s stand
    at the SL5B or “Second Life 5th Birthday”, NPC Awareness Night, and
    the Scavenger Hunt, the organizers requested logos, notecards and LMs;
    in each case, very few responded over the course of a few months, even
    though this takes only a few minutes and really helps in terms of
    community representation, not to mention driving visitors to your
    office and real life website!);

    3. Drop in at community events, even though you can’t be there the
    entire time to show your nonprofit’s support and involvement.

    * General/Presence on NPC 1 & 2 & Weekly Events:

    1. Drop in for either of the weekly dance events: Tuesday (8SLT) NP2
    at Wharf Ratz or Thursday (7SLT) NPC 1 at Common Ground.

    2. Create a “dot” on the maps for a few minutes now and then by just
    being there and available for visitors, whether it’s close to the
    island TP point, in your office or elsewhere on the island. Ask
    another nonprofit avatar to hangout with you there and talk to create
    two dots. When people see a dot, they tend to drop in more (and visit your office).

    3. Ask how you can know when visitors are near or entering your office
    (even if you are offline but in email) using a SuperGreeter tool and/
    or door entry detector, so that you can either TP over to your office
    or logon to greet them. You can IM me for more information.

    4. (New) – We have also just learned that submitting your nonprofit on the SL Showcase can drive a lot of visitors to your office and NPC (and over to your website as a result). Come to the 9/12 weekly meeting (or read the meeting notes) to find out how to do that. Both Garden for the Missing and Contact a Family have already done this. Showcasing your nonprofit does not take a lot of effort but can result in a dramatic increase in visitors and attention (Garden for the Missing received 600 visitors in a week’s time).

    Also, remember that organizers are sometimes 100% volunteers who are
    not part of TechSoup and not even nonprofit representatives, but
    individuals who are giving freely of their time, expertise and money
    to help us out. It is so important that we need to show our
    responsiveness and appreciation, in order that they will continue to
    support our community and causes.

    —> Note that none of the above takes much time but will increase
    your nonprofit presence, traffic and representation on the NPC islands and
    during community-wide events and just in general, even when you can’t
    be there a lot or at all.

    Just some ideas so that your office does not become an abandoned build
    or your nonprofit MIA as part of this wonderful community – Looking
    forward to your participation!

    Anika Pastorelli

    Written by: GCN