The four winners of the 2009 NGO Web Awards were announced at the NetTuesday meet up in Cape Town last night. The three winners in the category best use of social web were Food and Trees for Africa, South African History Online and Media and Training Centre for Health, while Cell-Life won the best use of mobile technology category.

Speaking at the event, Jan Moolman, Manager of SANGONeT’s Civil Society Information Programme said: “The quality of the entries we received this year show that many NGOs are beginning to explore the potential uses of social media in the work. The number of organisations with Facebook pages and Twitter feeds has grown significantly since last year.”

Moolman also pointed to the increasing trend evident in the over 60 entries using social media to complement their primary web presence. “The days of the ‘webmaster’ sitting in an office offsite to whom organisations send content to be uploaded to their websites are a thing of the past. Today almost all staff members are generating content used in online spaces – organisations are linking to their Facebook, Twitter and Flickr feeds directly from their websites.”

SANGONeT Executive Director, David Barnard handed the certificates over to the winners, all of whom were present at the event to receive their awards. Three of the winners received prizes to the value of R10 000 each sponsored by Torque-IT, while Telamenta sponsored an additional prize specifically for South African History Online.

The NGO Web Awards ceremony form part of the SANGONeT Social Media for NGOs Conference which ends in Cape Town today.

The 2009 shortlisted entries:

• South African Education and Environment Project
• Breadline Africa
• Daktari Bush School & Wildlife Orphanage
• Food and Trees for Africa
• Community Media Trust
• South African History Online
• Love Life Trust 
• Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme
• Foodbank South Africa
• Media and Training Centre for Health
• Campaigning for Cancer
• Cell-Life 

For more information on the ‘Social Media for NGOs’ Conference, go to: http://www.ngopulse.org/conference2009

Ends

For more information contact:

Janine Moolman
Editor: NGO Pulse
Manager: Civil Society Information
Tel: 011 403 4935
Email: janine@sangonet.org.za

David Barnard
Executive Director
SANGONeT
Tel: 011 403 4935
Email: info@sangonet.org.za