An isiZulu Word meaning 'we can do things for ourselves'.
Singazenzela is not another website – but a set of interactive services that empower vulnerable children and young people to initiate and access relevant life services – whatever they need, however they need it!
Singazenzela is not an on-line fantasy game - but a visual metaphor that uses a gaming approach to help children and young people to grasp how to make best use of what is out there - in ways that will enhance their security, health, education and well-being! Everything is blended together so that whatever media is available to a child can be used to make something happen.
The metaphor includes a digital key to their own virtual dwelling and their own private secure store. Wrapped around those private things is a understandable social environment - the buildings, the street and the neighbourhood.
Singazenzela enables these to be blended together as a hybrid construct bringing together into one virtual space the various fragments of a life spread across disconnected physical space - absent parents, rural grandparents, distant friends, next door neighbours, remote officialdom etc.
For much of the time target children may not be able to get on-line to any form of media rich material. So, there will be ways of offering them their own off line device that will work wherever a TV can be found. It will be a 'life events and key tasks' flight simulator style experience. Using it will be a rehearsal and preparation for the fleeting and transient moments when a child can get some form of affordable connectivity.
And, the Singazenzela metaphor is strong enough to allow them to mix and match public networks and appliances in a way that works for them e.g. use cell phone to pick up alerts set up using a computer in a digital doorway etc.
Ideally Singazenzela should help children & young people to work out how to engage better with their physical reality, extend their horizons and, initiate and manage a whole range of untested relationships with public sector delivery agencies and supportive NGOs.
The Singazenzela Partnership is building a permanent, sustainable, systemic initiative based on African cultures and values, using African expertise, and operating within an African cost structure.
With the support of African and international stakeholders (from commercial, public, governmental and voluntary sectors), Singazenzela will enable children and young people to address everyday issues and problems.
We invite you to find out more by downloading an explanatory document prepared as a Visual document by African partners and designers.
An Introduction to The Singa Experience (info)