It’s a piece I wrote for Linux Format back in December, when all was well with the world in Macha. Since then, however, Elton’s had his equipment and collection nicked, while the Macha staff are basically working for nothing because their main funding has just been pulled.

The problems of long lead times and the fact that LXF stories get published online after the mag’s been on sale is all rather unfortunate

.

Very happy to see a picture of mine has been chosen by the Guardian for International Women’s Day. I’ve written about Sonia many times in the past – she’s one of the most inspirational people I know. Bright, intelligent and with enough family problems that she could and probably should be doing anything she wanted in one of Zambia’s major cities. Instead she chooses to stay in a poor, remote school and walk 14km a day to try and make the world a slightly better place.

Sonia’s story – as it was two years’ ago – is over here. I cry every time I read it back. No matter how little she has or earns, she always puts other people first. And her partner, who scrimped and saved to help her go to college, is the same.

And there’s no reward for what she does. No karmic payback. Last year, she lost her third child – a baby, under a year old – to measles. A stupid, treatable, eradicable disease that picks on the best and the worst of us indiscriminately.

Last time I spoke to Sonia, she was praying for the chance to go back to college to get the next level of teaching qualifications she needs to continue improving her own career and maybe, one day, start her own school. I can only wish her the best of luck.

(Also, check out the funky new Flickr Slideshow plugin^^, beats the thumbnails that were there a moment ago)

It’s been a long day at City Camp Brighton, and I was late (as ever) for the start. But also enormously productive and interesting. I’ve sat in on discussions about everything from digital inclusion and how to help people facing benefit cuts to save money, to a fascinating idea about using QR codes to make the history of places in the city discoverable to anyone with a smart phone. My favourite pitch so far involves journalism – natch – and creating temporary workspaces for kids to tell their stories and raise their own issues in a magazine-style web TV channel.

Too tired to write it all up right now, and there were some 40-50 ideas discussed over the course of the day which I need to ingest. Suffice to say I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s big pitch day, where there’s real money on the table to try and find answers to some of Brighton’s problems.

The board of ideas, in the midst of being rearranged.

Also, if tomorrow goes according to plan, I’ll have a notebook to liveblog from that’s actually charged. Hurrah.

The concept is straightforward. Coders, community workers, council reps and anyone who wants to do something good spend a day coming up with ideas, then on Sunday work up a prototype they can pitch to try and win up to £10,000 of seed funding to get it off the ground.

Today’s part of the event was a series of speeches from local government, the police, voluntary groups, the NHS and data companies highlighting some of the problems Brighton faces, and what resources might be available to those who want to address them. Last year’s winners, MyUrbanAngel, explained how far they’ve come with their project, an app which can help people who find themselves in dangerous or troubling situations at night.

MyUrbanAngel functions as a sort of panic button if you’re worried someone’s following you, for example, and can automatically message friends if you need help. The idea came from a mother whose daughter was mugged and literally had no idea what to do. One feature I like about MyUrbanAngel which isn’t implemented yet is ‘safe zones’ – directing you to nearby volunteers or places that can be havens if you need them.

The CEO of Brighton & Hove Council addresses CityCamp

MUA offered the best advice of the day: “stay in tune with the needs of the city”. In Brighton, that’s a chronic shortage of good housing, disproportionate drug and alcohol abuse, a high suicide rate (related to the former problem), low secondary education results and – my personal interest – a general feeling of not belonging. The last is almost certainly a result of the large number of incomers to the city, who feel they can’t affect decisions made at local government level.

These problems were all pointed out by Alistair Hill of NHS Sussex, based on some really interesting research they’ve conducted. On the bright side, there’s generally a good level of health and wellbeing.

The day was rounded up by Brighton council Chief Exec John Barradell, who outlined some of the impacts austerity measures are going to have on a city that has a high level of dependency on public services and high youth unemployment. “We don’t have much money, but we do have the ability to help ideas forward”.

It’s quite a long way from the defensive reaction I heard from Adur Council at a recent meeting about the Localism Act a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve heard a few nascent pitches already. Veterans of last year’s Camp reckon tomorrow is the hardest, most intense day. Everyone gets hands on in an ‘unconference’ – a room full of tables which anyone can grab to start a discussion around a subject. The only rule is that if you’re not being proactive, move to another table. And a time limit for each discussion, I think.

Looking forward to it.

Two days ago I got a text message from George, the headteacher at Simakakata Community School in Zambia, telling me that a friend of his who I had the honour of meeting a few times had died. Shabby Aongola lived in the small compound of huts just a few hundred yards from the school, which is home to the blind and disabled community of Simakakata. Shabby was the voice of that community, he was a representative on the school PTA, took their concerns to the local chief, liaised with the church authorities and negotiated deals for help from local NGOs and organisations like Care.

It’s my understanding – and I may be wrong – that until Shabby arrived at Simakakata from an even more rural village further south, there was no provision or care for the disabled in the area. Working with the local church he helped to get funds for the compound, and encouraged them to act collectively. He helped to educate people about their rights and organise the delivery of the state benefits to which they are entitled but rarely received.  A soft spoken, serious man, he was their agitator-in-chief and earned them respect in a country which rarely even recognises they exist.

Shabby was blind – and I regret never asking him why, I assume he suffered from trachoma – as is his wife, who suirvives him. Together they maintained a small allotment-sized strip next to their hut on which they grew corn and kept chickens. They also raised a family: two daughters, the beautiful Holiness and Universe. Both children were enrolled in Simakakata school the first time I met them. The last time I saw Shabby, Universe was just about to start middle school in Kalomo, 7Km away. He was distressed because he didn’t have the £20 needed for her term fees, without which she was unable to start school.

Naturally I helped him out – getting his daughters (who are both completely healthy) an education was one of the most important things to Shabby. He was one of the driving forces in getting Simakakata school established before George arrived. Having a school nearby was essential for the disabled community, who are dependent on the healthy children to look after them. Either the children wouldn’t have been educated, or the parents would have to follow them to Kalomo and probably ended up begging on the streets. The school directly enabled the people of Shabby’s community retain their dignity and standard of living.

So it was going to hurt, sending Universe away. But Shabby’s pride in his daughter’s achievement overcame all. I have no idea what’s going to happen to the family now. I wish them the best, I fear for the worst. My thoughts are with them.

Apparently Shabby was taken ill quickly, and deteriorated over a short period of time. A horrible reminder that while I have many happy memories of Simakakata, and hope to visit again soon, life is impossibly unfair and hard for many of the people who live there. You can read more about Simakakata school at the LearnAsOne website. I encourage you all to donate if you can.

He’ll be missed by all who knew him.

Shabby with his daughters Holiness and Universe (Image credit Brenda Veltdman/LearnAsOne)

Elton is one of the nicest people I know, and I’ve been able to write about the amazing work he does for both the Guardian and Linux Format. As well as leading a lot of the technical side of Machaworks’ projects, he has a truly inspirational hobby – over the last four years he’s put together a rudimentary digital recording studio based around re-used PCs and borrowed instruments to record the music of the local villages before it dies out. Hopefully, history will record him as one of the great archivists of our time.

Saving up the little money Elton earns from Macha, he’s also bought himself things like an external hard drive for back up and a compact camera, which he’s used to set himself up as the first videographer in Macha. He records friends weddings and other special events, then edits them together using open source software like Openshot.

To me, Elton is the embodiment of how IT can be used as a tool for international development. So often, IT is seen as a magic wand which can be waved to make poverty go away. So often it fails. In Elton’s case, and that of Machaworks as a whole, it’s a device for personal empowerment and helping to radically modernise communities that have otherwise been left to slowly devolve back to the dark ages.

Except that on Friday night, the worst thing in the world I can possibly imagine happened. Someone broke into Elton’s room – one of ten or twelve identical chalets in a small brick outbuilding – and stole everything he owns. His netbook, his camera, his recording and editing PC, microphone and – most crucially – his external hard drive with all his recorded music on it. To make things worse, they also took other machines he’d borrowed from friends, and a synthesizer keyboard on loan from the local church. The monetary value isn’t huge, but it represents years of hard graft and savings, as well as the trust others had placed in him personally.

Elton, naturally, is devastated. I feel utterly powerless to help him – there’s some kit in my office I can ship to him to help replace what’s been lost, but as I say, it’s not so much the equipment as what was stored on it and what it represents that’s really been lost.

I know Elton – I know that he’s already picking himself up and trying to figure out how to get back up and running again. And there’s plenty of amazing people in Macha who’ll be only too happy to help him out. But it’s truly heart breaking that this has happened.

So if you’re in Zambia and someone tries to flog you a second hand camera or hard drive, at least have a look at it to see if it might be Elton’s.

But I really wish I could find a decent ergonomic keyboard with mechanical keyswitches. I don’t think I could work without Microsoft’s Desktop 4000 anymore, which is a joy to write with. Except that my (third) one is starting to feel a bit spongy already. What I want is the same keyboard with some nice Cherry switches. Which is what this incredible gent has spent over a year building for himself. Awesome.

I don’t want to be a Barclays customer. But they just bought Egg, with whom I took out a credit card years ago that I never use. Egg’s old site got closed down today, so I’m  trying to log on to clear the balance so I can leave Barclays. Then all my banking will be with those nice people at the co-op.

But here’s the thing, to get into my account I need to create a new username and password. Fair enough – that I can cope with. What is just bizarre is that my username has to be 8-16 characters long and contain both letters and numerals, whereas my password is just a six digit number. Isn’t that the wrong way round? How is that more secure than the normal way of doing things (ie the other way round) and do you want to take bets on how much Barclays spends on customer support, resetting accounts?