The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
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What if your job didn’t control your life? Brazilian CEO Ricardo Semler runs his company with surprisingly few conventional workplace rules. He practices a radical form of corporate democracy, rethinking everything from board meetings to how workers report their vacation days (they don’t have to). It’s a vision that rewards the wisdom of workers, promotes work-life balance, and leads to some deep understanding on what work and life is really all about.
For those that...
English comedian, actor and satirist, Marcus Brigstocke, joined a group of fellow comedians for a comedy night on the topic of "climate change". In a side-splitting delivery, he highlights the somewhat awkward relationship between democracy and climate change.
Given the general inertia on the crisis of climate change, organisers of the event, The Royal Society of the Arts (RSA) in the UK, got creative and hosted the comedy night to “inject fresh life and verve into what...
Ever since the January attack on French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, the hacker group Anonymous has embarked on efforts to challenge the tech savvy radical Islamic group, ISIS, which does much of its recruiting via the Internet. It is argued that freedom of speech is sacrosanct for the hacker community, hence, Anonymous' motivation to get involved in the struggle against ISIS after the Paris attack. Earlier this week Anonymous released a statement which said that they had exposed or...
Since 2000, more than 27,000 migrants and refugees have died attempting the perilous journey to Europe. It is illegal to send back migrants once they cross European borders. As a consequence, a routine European Union border patrolling practice is sending migrants back before they reach European shores -- a practice known as “push back”. Meanwhile thousands of migrants and refugees, including, Syrians seeking refuge from the terror sown by ISIS, are losing their lives trying to...
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As South Africa enters its third decade as a democracy, the idea of a rainbow nation, so carefully nurtured over the past 20 years, is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain with the stark realisation that the country remains largely untransformed. The lack of economic progress and social mobility for the vast majority of black South Africans means that apartheid-era social divisions have proven difficult to...
Today the speed at which we spread information is so fast that a single email can launch a worldwide awareness campaign, as with the Occupy movement. Yet as techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci seeks to show, the ease of social media can actually hurt social change in the long run. From Gezi Park to the Arab Spring to Ukraine to Hong Kong, she shows how today's movements can miss out on the benefits of doing things the hard (and slow) way. Technology does empower in multiple ways, but easier...
