Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Education

Flickr is a social network of people who like photography

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I started using Flickr to share my photos more than then years ago.

Flickr has brought me a lot of joy as, 11 years after, I have uploaded 16,165 photos which have been viewed 1,463,578 times in all (for an average of more than 90 views per photo which is not bad). Most of the viewers are members of my extended family and I thank them for that, even though only a few of them leave comments (most probably because they do not have an account on Flickr).

Yesterday, while browsing the Flickr website, I stumbled upon Flickr groups and this sentence caught my attention: “Flickr groups are a great way to share photos, post comments, and hold discussions around a common theme.” Of course, I knew that Flickr was a great social network for photographers but, up to now, I had neglected that part. So, I subscribed to some groups which I felt were interesting, both because of the quality of photo submissions but, first and foremost, because of the community of photographers participating and their level of interaction. Here are the groups I have subscribed to:

  • Canon DSLR User Group (because I have a Canon EOS 60D camera)
  • The Portrait Group (because most of my photos are portraits of family members, especially my wife, Christina, and my two kids, Anya and Kyan)
  • Nature (because I live in Mauritius!)
  • Landscape (same as above — because I live in Mauritius!)
  • B&W (because of the inherent beauty of black and white photos)
  • Macro (because this is something I would like to be able to do)
  • Strobist (because I would like to perfect my off-camera flash technique)
  • Night Images (because cameras have great high ISO performance now)

My intention is, initially, to visit those groups regularly in order to understand how they work, then start submitting some of my photos to them so that other photographers can offer constructive criticism. My intention is do discover like-minded people, talk with them, learn from them and, ultimately, become a better photographer.

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Just do it: Vote!!!

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We, Mauritians, will elect the people who will represent us in the Parliament for the next five years. I know politics might seem bizarre for young people as our politicians are so disconnect to (and somewhat clueless of) the kind of life the new generation has now. Heck, even I don’t relate to most of them, even though I’m 41…

But, and this is a major but, voting is a right and a duty. Our votes count.

Have a look at Elections Mauritius, a website Christina and I did a few days ago, to provide maximum information on constituencies, parties and candidates.

Just do it: Vote!!!

The five biggest problems in Mauritius

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According to a survey done by L’Express and DCDM Research in October 2014, here the five biggest problems in Mauritius right now:

  1. Unemployment (58.2% of respondents)
  2. Poverty (42.7%)
  3. Lack of purchasing power (27.2%)
  4. Problem of law & order (19.3%)
  5. Bad education (15.0%)

It is obvious that these are interlinked. For example:

Bad education (5) can lead to Unemployment (1) which can lead to Poverty (2) which can lead to a Lack of purchasing power (3) which can ultimately lead to Problems of law & order (4).

As an educator, I tend to think that the root of all evil is our education system. It was never very good and now it’s abysmal. Young graduates fresh from university lack essential skills which companies need and, as a result, unemployment is rampant. Ultimately, this can lead to major poverty and law & order issues if the root cause (i.e. bad education) is not remedied.

Of course, there are other ways to look at this picture. For example:

Poverty (2) leads to Lack of purchasing power (3) which can lead to Problem of law & order (4) which obviously leads to Bad education (5) and, at the end, Unemployment (1).

Here the root cause is poverty and, to all casual observers, Mauritius is two countries in one now. The first “country” (Maurice, c’est un plaisir!) contains the high income earners driving their BMW in company of their trophy wife towards their residence in a guarded community. This is, at most, a few percent of the population. The second “country” (Maurice, c’est une galère!), is the country of modern slaves: people who are just numbers and are treated as such. They generally have low income and tend to spend their few rupees very unwisely because they lack general knowledge.

In my opinion, this divide is going to increase during the coming years. We need to find good solutions quickly.

I wonder if the current crop of politicians are equipped to do that? Are they even interested? Or are they too busy driving their BMW in company of their trophy wife towards their residence in a guarded community?