Following a night of indiscriminate looting, the residents of Clapham responded to a #riotcleanup Twitter campaign to reclaim their streets.

Clapham’s cleaning army is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

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Clapham's riot cleanup army await instructions to start cleaning up the streets

 See my full Demotix photo report here

If London is a place of brusqueness and apathy, then the streets around Clapham Junction were a marked exception on Tuesday afternoon.

Determined to reclaim the city following a night of mindless rioting, people from all over the capital rose early to stock up on brooms, gloves, dustpans and bin liners before heading out to the previous night’s hot spots. Responding to a Twitter campaign run by @Riotcleanup and @artistsmakers, the aim was to support local shopkeepers and help clean up the streets.

Some early birds in Hackney and Camden Town were left with little to do, as councils had efficiently cleared the streets in the early ours of the morning. But the word on Twitter indicated that there was still work to do in Clapham Junction.

A small crowd started gathering outside the station entrance at around lunchtime, armed with their cleaning gear and sporting slogans such as “We Love Clapham” and “Power to the Peaceful”. The gathering slowly grew into a cosmopolitan mix of school kids on summer holiday, posh-looking students, self-employed arty types, skiving office workers, self-appointed community leaders, moms, dads, grandparents and the odd rastafarian.

With the swelling numbers came Twitter-fuelled predictions regarding further riots and some heated arguments about the underlying causes of the previous night’s violence. But the atmosphere remained peaceful throughout, with people getting increasingly excited as it became clear that the police would eventually allow people to pitch in and help clear the streets.

Cheers went up as the fire brigade concluded their investigation of the by then infamous burnt-out party shop on Lavender Hill, whilst workers from Wandsworth Council’s environmental services arrived to co-ordinate the clean-up.

A small group of people were led into a side street, where they were told to wait another 30 minutes to allow shopkeepers to inspect their premises first. People waited patiently as a solemn group of business owners quietly paraded down a deserted, debris-strewn St John’s Road.

The police cordon was finally removed, and people flooded onto the street – many more than was required – leaving the street thoroughly spotless within about half an hour. Eager helpers assisted shopkeepers to clear out and tidy up their shops, whilst others enjoyed the free coffee handed out at Starbucks.

A boy poses with his broom on St John's Road

 See my full Demotix photo report here

St John’s avenue quickly became the cleanest street in London, without so much as a shard of glass, cigarette butt or piece of chewing gum to be seen. Yet people didn’t leave. The local accessory store erected a sign, saying: “Clapham, you’re amazing” and started playing some upbeat music; people gathered around shops to talk and hang out and a local photographer conducted formal portrait sessions featuring group of people with yellow gloves and giant brooms at her makeshift street studio.

It is rare to see a group of Londoners gather like this, without a specific mission to spend money, sun worship, consume or be entertained. With the cleanup done, people displayed a desire to remain, simply for the sake of remaining; to soak up the atmosphere and to reclaim the streets in a peaceful yet defiant gesture showing that London has a community spirit – if we choose to unleash it.

What was your experience of the riots and their aftermath? Do you think campaigns such as this one make a difference, or are they little more than posturing by the relatively well-off middle classes? Let me know what you think – just leave a comment below.

Clapham’s cleaning army is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

Articles for various industry publications, press releases, blog posts, SEO work and general marketing materials for the award-winning international digital agency, Reading Room.

Marketing, PR and SEO: Reading Room is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

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Reading Room is an award-winning international digital agency with over 180 staff working in the UK, Australia and Singapore. Their Singapore office is new but it’s expanding rapidly, and they required high quality content for consumption by the Singapore business community, including:

• Expert articles and blog posts
• Press releases
• Direct marketing materials (both online and offline)
• Search-engine optimised content for their own website

Result

Internal marketing and SEO work are kept confidential, but publicly-available items include articles for Campaign Asia, The Singapore Business Review, the Reading Room Blog and various press releases.

Quote

“Really enjoyed working with you. You’re a fantastic copywriter and I hope we get to use you again!“ – Sally Grimes, Marketing Executive, Reading Room

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Marketing, PR and SEO: Reading Room is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

I helped Stellenbosch University’s Economics department by writing up a series of accessible, readable policy briefs to communicate the results of their research to a non-academic audience.

Policy Briefs: Stellenbosch University is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

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Stellenbosch University’s Department of Economics needed some slick policy briefs to communicate the results of their research to a non-academic audience. They recognised that journalists and policymakers face time pressures and information overload, and many of them don’t have the statistical knowledge or the inclination to digest highly technical research papers.

The requirement was for accessible summaries that:

• Got the point across without trivialising the academic arguments
• Created interest in the research, showing direct relevance to policies and current affairs
• Encouraged further reading and invited people to get in touch

Result

I wrote a series of punchy, 4-page policy briefs, each containing

Click here to view examples

• An executive summary
• A statement linking the research to current policy debates
• A brief summary of the research
• And a clear explanation of what it implies.

Quote

“These policy briefs are very good. Many people try to do them, but they do not usually know how.“ Linda Chisholm, Advisor to the South African Minister of Basic Education

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Policy Briefs: Stellenbosch University is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

The Social Policy Research group at Stellenbosch University needed a short statement to communicate the results of their education policy research to the press.

Press Release: Stellenbosch Economics is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

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The Social Policy Research group at Stellenbosch University was getting ready to present the results of their education policy research to various journalists and policymakers in South Africa. Although they had an excellent summary paper already, they wanted something short and to-the-point to distribute to the press.

The aim was to create a buzz and encourage journalists to call them.

Result

I wrote a short press release highlighting the results of their research. Together with the in-person workshop, this resulted in some good coverage:

Read the full press release

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• Featured in the nationwide Mail & Guardian
• An editorial in Business Day
• A mention during the Riz Khan show on Al Jazeera
• Several other smaller articles in the local press

Quote

“This process has gone down well with our donors in terms of dissemination and policy impact” – Ronelle Burger, Stellenbosch University.

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Press Release: Stellenbosch Economics is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

South Africa’s poor continue to lag behind when it comes to education, employment opportunities and wages, despite official attempts to address historical discrimination and imbalances.

Pro-poor reforms in South Africa failing to deliver results is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

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Policies need to look beyond affirmative action, to the role of quality education

South Africa’s poor continue to lag behind when it comes to education, employment opportunities and wages, despite official attempts to address historical discrimination and imbalances.

Recent research by the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University finds that the education system generally fails to produce outcomes to help eradicate inequalities.

Instead, schooling reinforces current patterns of poverty and privilege.

A backlog, from an early age

The research, conducted as part of a large project undertaken by the department’s Social Policy Research Group, highlights the importance of quality education in the improvement of poor children’s economic prospects.

It is therefore alarming that by the age of 8, children from the poorest 80% of households are already far behind the richest 20% in student performance. This disadvantage remains throughout their years of education and stays with them when they enter the labour market.

Reforms are not having an impact

There have been fundamental reforms to the administration and governance of education in South Africa, and considerable progress in redistributing public expenditure. Public spending on non-personnel costs for the poorest 20% of schools is roughly six times higher than expenditure on the richest 20% of schools.

Nevertheless, the majority of poor South African learners continue to under-perform in Maths, Reading and Science in terms of standards set by the curriculum.

They also fare poorly when measured against other African countries. Given that South Africa has more qualified teachers, lower pupil-to-teacher-ratios and better access to resources, one would expect that South African students would perform at the top of the regional distribution. Unfortunately this is not the case. In a league table of student performance, South Africa ranks 10th out of the 15 Sub-Saharan African countries tested for Grade 6 student reading performance and 8th out of 15 for Grade 6 student maths performance. This means that South Africa is performing worse than Botswana, Zimbabwe or Swaziland, for example.

The challenges of being poor

School outcomes are highly unequal. For example, the poorest 80% of learners scored significantly lower than the richest 20% in Grade 6 Maths and reading tests.

Being a learner in a poor school represents a huge disadvantage, and black children are more likely to attend poor schools, with little opportunity to transfer into the more effective, wealthier part of the system.

A number of problems plague poor children from the outset. They face a lack of a stimulating learning environment at home, and they do not benefit from quality pre-schooling in sufficient numbers.

Once they enter the school system, they are more likely to attend schools characterised by low levels of discipline, weak management and a lack of highly qualified, experienced teachers. They generally don’t have sufficient access to textbooks, don’t get enough homework or opportunities for extended learning time at school and their teachers do not provide regular assessments and good feedback to help them make wise subject choices.

Labour market outcomes

A lack of educational attainment and quality schooling has a significant, negative impact on poor children’s employment and earnings potential.

In contrast, wealthier children are more likely to pass Matric with an exemption that allows them to enter tertiary education and compete for the best jobs.

The limited effectiveness of affirmative action

A large part of what we perceive to be labour market discrimination is actually caused by a lack of sufficient, quality education on the part of poor, black children. Affirmative action measures therefore do not tackle the root cause of the inequality problem.
Effective pro-poor policies should be targeted at those specific causes of under-performance in the poor parts of the education system,. Without such a focus, inequalities in education, employment opportunities and earnings are set to remain.

For more information or to request access to the original research papers, contact Ronelle Burger at RBURGER [at] sun.ac.za

Pro-poor reforms in South Africa failing to deliver results is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

Revamped website copy for SocialGO v2, the market-leading platform that lets people build thriving, socially-integrated websites.

Website copywriting: SocialGO is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

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The new platform, SocialGO v2, builds on their existing popularity whilst adding new, exciting features.

They required fresh website copy for the new product’s sales pages.

SocialGO v2 sales site

Result

Revamped copy that clearly states the benefits and overall ease of use, encouraging site visitors to sign up for the new service.

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Website copywriting: SocialGO is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

Revamped site copy along with an email report, top Google rankings and an impressive stream of online leads and conversions for London Metabolic Balance

Web and SEO copywriting: London Metabolic Balance is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

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I worked with Inner Heat Design who developed a new wesbite for Suné Connell from London Metabolic Balance.

• It’s a great product, but most sites explaining Metabolic Balance are quite clinical.
• The aim was to differentiate by making the offer friendly, personal and accessible, whilst achieving top search engine rankings.

Result

London-MetabolicBalance.com

Following extensive keyword and segment research, I produced copy for the new site pages, an email signup report and auto-responder series and regular email newsletters.

We achieved:

• Top Google position for metabolic balance
• An impressive stream of online leads and conversions
• Additional traffic relating to “healthy weight loss”, through the use of targeted longtail keywords.

Quote

“I will never forget that amazing feeling when the first client rang up out of the blue, having found me via my website. He was ready to sign up, with no convincing required! This is going to change the way I do business“ Suné Connell, London, December 2010

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Web and SEO copywriting: London Metabolic Balance is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

Inspector Grape launched a new site with an attractive signup offer to his subscribers, but needed the help of an email copywriter to communicate with his growing online audience.

Email copywriter service: Inspector Grape is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

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Inspector Grape is the online alter ego of chef and sommelier Dawid Koegelenberg. He launched a new site with an attractive signup offer to his subscribers, but needed the help of an email copywriter to communicate with his growing online audience.

Result

I wrote a number of marketing and follow up emails aimed at keeping his subscribers engaged and exited.

Example Inspector Grape Email

• His email signup list continues to grow in numbers
• The exposure led him to be featured on the major us wine website Snooth.com, and he is now working with them to become a regular contributor

Quote

“I never knew that having an enthusiastic list of dedicated, interested followers would be this powerful. The connections I’ve made have been invaluable in helping me turn my passion into business” – Dawid Koegelenberg, Sep 2010

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Email copywriter service: Inspector Grape is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

If you’ve ever found yourself cooking up a great plan or adventure whilst taking your morning shower, only to find after weeks or months of procrastination that someone else has executed your grand idea, then you must read this book.

Choose your own adventure is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

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Review of Twitchhiker by Paul Smith (Summersdale, 2010). Available from Amazon

If you’ve ever found yourself cooking up a great plan or adventure whilst taking your morning shower, only to find after weeks or months of procrastination that someone else has executed your grand idea, then you must read this book.
Why? Because here is a man who had the guts to follow through.

The aim is singular: Paul Smith is to travel from Newcastle in the UK to Campbell Island near New Zealand. Yet the method is beautifully incomplete: By his own rules, he must advance his journey exclusively through travel and accommodation offers from people on Twitter. He’s not allowed to plan more than three days in advance, and his own money may be spent on food and drink only. If he receives just one offer for the next stage of his trip, he’s obliged to take it. If there’s more than one, he can choose.

There is a point in the book where Smith compares his story to a Choose Your Own Adventure tale, where the reader controls the outcome by making choices at key stages in the book (“If you want Jim to get on the train and follow the man with the suspicious-looking hat, go to page 13”). I remember lapping up these novels as a teenager, and at a basic level this “crowd-sourcing of the plot” idea might explain the child-like fascination and blind trust displayed by the random strangers who helped shape his unpredictable journey through public “@replies” on Twitter.

Luckily the parallel with these novels stops there. Unlike those relics of teenage nostalgia, Smith’s book has the feel of a rounded, well-crafted novel and it proceeds at a satisfying pace that makes it hard to put down.

You don’t need to be a social media enthusiast to enjoy it. Although the book exposes the brilliant possibilities that open-ended Twitter communications embody, the tool itself is no more than that: It is a means to an end.

For me, the book is much more about human nature and our collective desire to transcend the mundane in order to become part of something big and meaningful. We’re genetically programmed for it, and so are the wonderful characters Smith meets along the way. From high-flying middle-aged German entrepreneurs through ageing Californian hipsters to no-nonsense patriotic Kiwis; each had their individual motivation for helping out, but the common thread was simple: Here is someone doing something that people will talk about, and I want to be a part of it.

Smith’s biggest achievement is to portray himself as a fallible character. One of the back cover reviews calls him a “true British eccentric”, but I think it misses the point. The real power of this tale lies in Smith’s exposition of his own fears, misconceptions and faults without sounding annoyingly woeful or pretentiously self-effacing.

We don’t need to be “eccentrics” to do great things. Normal people with mortgages, kids, demanding jobs and personal weaknesses can do so too. And for every critic or detractor there will be ten people offering encouragement and support, because they see in the adventurer a courage that, possibly, they find lacking in themselves.

I must confess that I have a certain prejudice against lad-ish humour and witty pop culture references, and whilst reading the first few chapters I feared these might derail the book. But I was wrong, firstly because they are used sparingly and sensibly, but ultimately because I bought into Smith as an individual, and such references naturally become part of his character. By page 40 I found myself willing him towards success.

If you’re long on ideas but short in motivation, then buy this book. It’s a brilliant portrayal of a simple fact: The best way to get things done is not through pondering and analysing, but through getting up and doing something about it. The details have a way of working themselves out along the way.

Images and text (c) Stefan Ferreira (2010)

Choose your own adventure is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

I resisted visiting Ibiza for a long time, simply because I did not imagine it to be the kind of place to have a relaxing holiday, due to its reputation as binge party destination. Finally succumbing based on friends’ recommendations, I was genuinely surprised ..

Street view: Ibiza is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.

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Outside of its world-famous clubs and crazy party culture, the place has a lot of charm and interesting diversity of locals and foreigners who dress the place in  colour and character despite the generally laid-back pace of life. I had a lot of fun exploring.

See the full Flickr photo set here.

Street view: Ibiza is a post by Stefan Ferreira, writer and photographer in London Visit today to join the conversation.