Yes, its Nico Di Mattia the master
of digital speed paint whose works worth millions on the market and his videos
are hitting on you tube with millions of viewers. Yet, we have our own Di
Mattia’s in our local street. I have done some small research in the street of Dar es Salaam.
I went to Buguruni somewhere in urban Dar I found some
kids making reasonable money using Photoshop CS3. ViewMegan Fox speed paint by Nico Di Mattia on YouTube.
The kids are
using the software as their main source of income by charging people who want
their photos to be edited to create some visual reality about their appearance
so that they can share the photos on the social networking site or putting them
in their sitting room, dining hall whatever.
Talking with
one of the Kids at the local internet café about the business he said “we are able to make up to 10,000Tshs in editing just one photo and
that depend with the customer for those who appear broke we took less. The
price can rise up to 20,000Tshs depending on the number of photos they brought”. When asking him were he learnt the
skills, wither he has gone to some college or not. He told me “We always spent
more times in these café we learnt all the skills from the guys who were taught
the tricks by their friends, actually is just knowledge sharing”.
Hint: Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and
published by Adobe Systems.
Believe me
Photoshop has been a savior to these kids, with youth joining the social
networking sites day in day out and all of them want to look great on their
appearance on these sites for them it is an endless market opportunity and yet
once again IT is moving the poor African communities.
For people like Hassan a
teenager who lost both of his parents through AIDS, living with his aunt, the
knowledge on photo editing has been a great support to him. It is the time we
use the knowledge we have to impact our communities. Just take your time to
think if more of these kids could have the kind of knowledge Hassan have, what
could have been the impact. Hassan is able to study at Bandari College through
the small money he made and the support from his aunt. He just recently bought his new Toshiba laptop to support him on
his activities.
The little
you can give to the community the larger the impact. Give these kids the purposes
help them to avoid social calamity and falling into irresponsible behaviors. Supporting
kids like Hassan and guide them it will help us in the future to have our own Nicco
Di Mattias in our community a lot of them.