“Starlight Children’s Foundation has been dedicated to improving the quality of life for children with chronic and life-threatening illnesses and life-altering injuries by providing entertainment, education and family activities that help them cope with the pain, fear and isolation of prolonged illness.”



Starlight offers a comprehensive menu of outpatient, hospital-based and Web offerings that enable us to provide ongoing support for children and families — from diagnosis through the entire course of medical treatment. Programs include:

• Family activities and outings that give families a chance to have fun together away from the hospital so they can relax, regroup and return home with a renewed sense of strength and hope. The events also forge important connections between families struggling with similar issues to combat feelings of isolation.
• In-hospital entertainment technology that helps kids fill hours in hospitals or treatment centers with therapeutic fun; find distraction during long or painful medical procedures; access Starlight’s online educational programs and communities; and stay connected with the outside world and keep up with school work during extended hospitalizations.
• Online communities and interactive websites that help seriously ill teens connect with each other and find tips and strategies for coping with their medical conditions.
• In-hospital playrooms, kid-friendly treatment rooms and special events that help ease the loneliness, fear and boredom that accompany hospital stays.
• Educational programming — delivered via online interactive games, ezines, webisodes, a comic book and websites — to help sick children understand common hospital procedures and manage illnesses and injuries such as cancer, sickle cell, cystic fibrosis, asthma, Crohn’s and colitis, severe burns and kidney disease.

Also other than just thee type of programs, they also provide SPECIFIC programs for children with different types of illnesses such as asthma or cancer.

This is a short comparison between Starlight and Club Rainbow, As you can see it s definite that Club rainbow, needs to step up, and become a modern charity that uses modern technologies and tools that allows it to be connected more with the public.

Twitter:

Twitter is now one of the most popular blogging sites in the world, specifically its the most used micro blogging site in the world.

It uses a live blogging technique in which bloggers can only type up to 140-word short texts. This encourages the blogger to just use short and simple sentences to tell viewers what they are currently doing, instead of having a full blog with alot of information like Blogger.

Since its creation by a guy called Jack Dorsey in 2006, Twitter has become a mainstay for users who just want to have a blog with short, sweet posts and some also find it as a good alternative to instant messaging as well. Thus it is dubbed “The SMS of the Internet”. In fact, any user of Twitter can send and receive tweets via Twitter, SMS or even external applications, like the Twitter app on the iPhone.

Why use it?

First of all , the use of such small blogs with short sentences, gives the viewers infromation which is staright to the point, making it easy to see and understand. Also the layout of twtter is simple, with just the posts in the middle with your contacts beside it.

Secondly, it is very easy to use. The number of people who are using Twittwer has exceeded 5 million. Majoit of this is thanks to its easy to use interface. All you need to do is type your post in a new window and that is it; the use of the  layout is very simple.

Finally, its everywhere! On your smartphone on your laptop, anything that can access the internet , you can get to twitter.

How does it help Club Rainbow?

What a charity could do with Twitter is simple. Club Rainbow is able to get out new announcements and updates about the organisation fast and effectively. With so many people using Twitter, they are able to reach out to dozens and dozens of people and also become friends with other charities online. Also Club rainbow could use the website as a base to get views and opinions from their friends or from the public.

Web presence:

Not bad. The charity’s official website uses a Web 2.0 created website with animated buttons and also animated picture screens. They also have an animated announcement window. It is an effective website that gets straight to the point, using colours just like their logo. It is also updated regularly with up-to-date announcements about upcoming events. Also, Club Rainbow has their own Facebook page, which also is kept up to date.

What seems to be lacking and also what could be improved is that first of all, there is no link from their official website to link to their Facebook page, which can only be found via a Google search. Since Facebook is one of the most popular social networking websites right now, its vital that they include the link so that visitors can keep track of any important announcements on Facebook, which is a much easier choice rather than going to their official page.

Also what Club Rainbow can do is also use other social networking sites like Twitter to keep people up-to-date. Also if they have video to share with, YouTube can be used.

Who are they?

• A non GMO charity
• Founded in 1992
• Charity committed to  helping children and youths who suffer from a wide range of chronic and potentially life-threatening illnesses.
• Supports more than 470 children and families
• They do a volunteer-based be-friender society, counselling, free tuition at home or  at their Rainbow Care Centre, also, bedside tuition is used for children warded at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital
• Also takes part in family bonding through a range of social activities, give talks on medical and family-related issues
• Provide financial help for families who are in need

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• They are in need of donations and support for the families of these children
• They are also asking for volunteers to help out in their commitees, for example, teachers and/or befrienders.

They are also asking for people to join a few of their committees.

Youth Committee - Support and help to run programmes for youths aged 13 to 20.

Camp Rainbow Committee - Organise and plan for the Rainbow Camp in June

Fundraising Committee - Assists Club Rainbow in planning strategic activities that raise awareness of Club Rainbow and services and also assist in devising unique fundraising opportunities.

Specialist Volunteers - For people who are good in IT, auditing and accounts, computer skills, music, drama, dance, cooking, arts & crafts, writing and graphic design or  anyone who possess other professional skills.

Programme Committee – Involved in two annually-run events “Annual Party” and “Caregivers Appreciation Day” and other ad-hoc events which require manpower on the actual day.

Hello, This is my literature review on the article “MYTH BUSTED: Internet Use Doesn’t Lead to Isolation.” found on http://mashable.com

What this topic talks about is one of the most common problems that people think others have with the internet : The internet makes people less social with others. Well this article was put up to rectify the myth and say that it is not exactly true. Lots of people have this feeling : Imagine a child who uses a social networking site like Facebook for many hours a day , and has turned him into a asocial person who can’t communicate as well with the people around him because of this.

Well this article says that “online activities such as social networking, sending e-mails and blogging can lead to larger, and (perhaps even more importantly) more diverse social networks.” totally different from the norm.

Using a study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, it shows that “Social media activities are associated with several beneficial social activities, including having discussion networks that are more likely to contain people from different backgrounds. For instance, frequent internet users, and those who maintain a blog are much more likely to confide in someone who is of another race. Those who share photos online are more likely to report that they discuss important matters with someone who is a member of another political party.”

Statistics also show that most people also use the internet because it is the easiest way to stay in touch with their friends and family. 71% of users on Facebook alone have at least one member of their core network of friends, that is, the friends they have in real life, as a friend in their account, same for Myspace.
Also, another interesting thing about internet users are that student users are more likely (45%) to visit a coffee shop than people who don’t. That said another long term myth that frequent internet users that stay at home all the time is also busted, since people use the internet wherever they are in many public spaces.

To give my opinion about this, I am a blogger and I also keep a YouTube account as well, also I play alot of online games . I feel that this helps me to socialize better with people online. I also play online games with many of my real friends in life. This also helps to build a better friendship between ourselves. Also, I am a long time internet user who spends hours in front of the computer, yet I also make time to spend time with my family, and also my friends out on weekends. I also do not really spend a long time at the computer in one go, rather in breaks. I also feel that the part about internet users using it everywhere is also evident in that I bring my laptop around almost everywhere I go.

Therefore, I feel this article is a relief for anyone in our society who thinks that using internet will make us isolated. Whereas the truth is it really helps us with our social life alot more than it does not.

The full report of the PEW study can be found here

My Teacher Is totally Random! Funny and acts like a kid sometimes. Honest!

Well she doesn’t look like Nagato, she does have kind of short hair and thats her expression.

See ya!

ダニエル-san

Love ,
ダニエル-san

Kobanwa! I’m staying late up at night, catching up on anime watching!! I went to Starhub and they were watching Animax…”DAMN IT! I NID THAT CHANNEL!!”… or the internet. (hee….) so I’m trying to get started. Dang! I got Church tomorrow!

ダニエル-san

Now watching Kanamemo, then Needless…Then….