Virtual Africa: NGOs in Second Life

Last month we definitively established that Second Life does not have a higher GDP than Zimbabwe, now it seems like Linden Labs is trying to put the squeeze on non-profits and NGOs who’ve created virtual islands by raising costs. One of these NGOs is Uthango who blog about a 333% increase in what they’ll have to pay for their rent while simultaneously no longer being able to charge rent to their users in-game. In this post they talk about how they’re trying to make their in-world communities more sustainable these new policy changes from Linden Labs…

UTHANGO just purchased two openspace islands adjacent to Virtual Africa to experiment one step further with sustainable practices for nonprofits in Second Life. We have set out little African safari campsites and prepared ourselves for a break-even to cover the tier fees with limited, wide-spread, low-prim rental spaces: A true virtual wildlife experience! BUT!! We got the letter a month later (AFTER being pressed to pay 6 months in advance for these sims!) and even BEFORE these new openspace sims opened: The Linden Lab Conceige Team (always courteous mind you) simply reminded us a few days ago: “Rather than being employed as open areas like ocean with little or no content and traffic, the majority are being rented out to residents looking for a place to live…”

Now, I understand Africa has some water and many open planes – but even for us, it is a tall order to ask a non-profit to put an entire sim to such unsustainable use as NOT to rent it out to residents (really community members) that would like to contribute from the sky campsites (six small ones) to the maintenance of the project. I must be missing some reasoning here…

For now, I shall just say that we will continue to seek sustainable ways to use virtual worlds in/for Africa. This last step makes it a bit more impossible to apply Second Life’s benefits to Bottom-of-the-Pyramid projects – or even, to achieve our dream to revamp Robben Island for intercultural dialogue and exhibition of African best practice projects.

Uthango’s mission statement…

This blog is our record of the experiences we have as we pursue our dream to create a gateway for Africans into virtual worlds, and specifically into Second Life, as a starting point. We are indeed the very first registered African-based company – as far as we know and have been told – in virtual worlds. We strategically position ourselves in virtual worlds such as Second Life (R) to create awareness for our real world innovative programmes in sustainable development and established linkages.

Via Virtual Africa