Diakonia Good Friday Service

ICC: Good Friday 6 April from 6:15am

The 22nd Annual Diakonia Council of Churches’ Good Friday Service will be held on Good Friday, Friday 6 April 2007 at the Durban International Convention Centre (ICC) at 6:15am and the guest preacher is Bishop Rt Revd Rubin Phillip speaking on the theme: We Overcome Through the Cross.

Singing starts at 5:15am at the International Convention Centre. Bishop Rt Revd Rubin Phillip will preach the sermon at the service which starts at 6:15am. Thereafter the congregation will process through the streets of Durban in silence. The service will conclude at approximately 8.15am on the steps of the City Hall with the flowering of the Cross, an act of commitment by all present to work for the eradication of poverty.


The Diakonia Council of Churches – which celebrated 30 years of service to Church and Community last March – is focusing on the churches’ response to serious poverty-related issues in this region. A year ago, Diakonia published The Oikos Journey: a carefully-researched resource document which is a theological reflection on the economic crisis in South Africa bringing together the voices of the poor with analysis of the systems that keep the poor in their place. It looks at the economic injustices in society and to try and find ways of helping the churches to get to grips with these. To this end, they will continue with their focus on Poverty as the theme for Diakonia’s Good Friday service again this year.


Entry to the Good Friday Service is free and all are most welcome to participate in this significant, multi-lingual Christian Easter event. For more information – contact the Diakonia Council of Churches on 031 310 3500.

IOL gets Zoopy'd

From the Zoopy blog

Just today, IOL leapfrogged stuck-in-the-mud thinking and embedded a Zoopy video in one of their stories.

Someone from Zoopy HQ was at the Solidarity in Action / Freedom of Expression protest outside the SABC in Sea Point yesterday and uploaded the footage to our iWitness News photo and video channels. IOL happened to cover the event and, for the benefit of their readers jumped at the opportunity to enhance the written article with some video footage of the event, which we were only too happy to share.

Have a look at just a small example of what South Africans can achieve online, when we put our heads and hearts together:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3015&art_id=vn20070329093103423C456687

Zoomr a free, multi-lingual photosharing site

Some pics from Zoomr


With Zooomr, photos are no longer just photos -- they are emotions, ideas, and stories meant to be shared and explored. Zooomr helps you share them with the world. Here's how:

Show your favorite photos to the entire world in anyone's language
Actually put your photos on the map!
Add sound to your photos
Define who's inside a photo and maybe become famous
Feel at ease when sharing private photos with friends and family members
..And if you think that's cool, just see what's next

18 year old Chris Tate is the coding expert responsible for Zooomr, one of the most popular photo websites on the net.

He has been using computers since he was four years old - and not just bashing his fingers on a keyboard as though it were a toy.

"At four I was working with my dad's Apple Mac. He brought home Code Warrior programming software and compilers and I started coding. I liked seeing how things ticked.

"I was able to build things and share it with other people.

"Zooomr is a combination of all my past experiences, bringing them all together into one solution."

Tate built Zooomr initially for friends but launched it to the world soon after. The site was mentioned on prominent technology blog TechCrunch and within hours picked up buzz on the blogosphere.

DIY Planner templates

Are you one of those really organised people? How do you do it, do you make many lists? Is so you'll love this site. If not, take a look anyway and maybe you'll be able to use one of the templates to become more organised.

Pet Care diary, business expenses, minutes of meeting, mileage log, this site has a DIY Planner template just for you.

Quote of the day

The consumer is in control

With the rapidly expanding media landscape, marketers and advertisers have never faced more challenges in reaching consumers, giving them what they want -- when they want it -- and finding brand success and longevity in the interactive space.

Maria Mandel, partner, executive director of digital innovation for Ogilvy Interactive, opened the floor at the 2007 iMedia Breakthrough Summit with some solutions on how to best involve and interact with consumers on their terms, and with some of the more effective approaches to building brands and developing relationships where they count.

Renaming her keynote "Consumer Control," Mandel stressed that the crux of the media world is that the consumers are in the driver's seat, and that it's up to them to determine how to interact with your brand or content.

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Socially Responsible Investing

SocialFunds.com -- Socially responsible investing (SRI) experienced a landmark year in 2006 on so many fronts that any one of the SocialFunds Top Five SRI News Stories could have taken the number one spot in any of the previous seven years we published this list. The sheer number of green investing developments, combined with the gravity of the climate crisis they address, made this topic rise to the top of the list this year. On par with this, however, is the significance of Muhammad Yunus winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

The launching of the Principles of Responsible Investment by the United Nations is numbered fifth, but clearly it is a development of global importance for SRI. So the number ranking is less important than the compilation and analysis of the most significant SRI events that transpired in 2006 to help project what 2007 likely holds in store.

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