One of the most interesting email lists I’m involved with is the Second Life Health list. Yesterday I noticed an interesting announcement from a group called GimpGirl:
GimpGirl Community was founded in 1998 by women with disabilities to serve the needs of our community through various on-line mediums. For many years we were primarily using mailing lists, our web site and later on LiveJournal, Facebook and MySpace, but at the end of last year our educational contacts and supporters encouraged us (and gave us the resources) to expand on to Second Life. Through hard work by our core group, as well as the help of volunteers we developed a parcel on Second Life that now has weekly group meetings full of women with disabilities from all walks of life. We will be hosting our first public presentation by sociologist and head of the Avatar Identity Research Center, Rivka Rau this coming weekend. (See details below signature.) Our parcel also hosts an art gallery and vendor area for women with disabilities (both of which are still filling in). We will soon be hosting events for our current partners and the general public to further explore how to empower those in our community. Our transition to Second Life, as well as our continued efforts on-line and off, has been going wonderfully and we’re very excited about what projects and opportunities the future will bring!
Cheers,
Jennifer Cole/JennyLin Arashi (in world), Co-Director and Founder
GimpGirl Community
http://www.gimpgirl.com
The Second Life parcel is a fairly standard open ampitheatre style, with events like the following already announced”
“Avatars, Identity, and the Expression of Disability”
Rivka Rau is the director of the Avatar Identity Research Center, and a professor of sociology in real life. The AV-ID Center is the home of the Editing Appearances project, an interview study of avatar embodiment and selfhood in SL. Rivka Rau has conducted over 200 hours of interviews for this project. In addition, through AV-ID she offers a seminar series on topics related to identity and the SL body. She will presenting on our current topic of the month, disability identity on-line, at our Second Life parcel. There will be time for Q & A as well as general discussion.
Open to the public.
When:
Sunday, March 30th, 2008 from 12:00 – 1:30 PM SLT/Pacific Time (3:00 PM Eastern Time)
Second Life location:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/3DE/139/61/22
IF YOU DON’T HAVE ACCESS TO SECOND LIFE:
You can still attend this presentation online via IRC. To visit our IRC/Second Life chatroom, go to:
http://chat.on.quickfox.net/GimpGirl
…and choose the option that works best for you.
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