Twestival Beirut 2011

For all my homosexual friends who thought I had crossed over when they saw me wearing that pink wig, I have bad news for you, I’m still very much straight =D

The reason I was wearing it was, because it was extremely cool, and because it was for a nobler cause. This isn’t a review for my tweeps as much it is a review for my non-twitter friends.

Tweetup, Follow, Tweep all sound weird and geeky. Hashtag, handle and mentions sound pretty much foreign. But, Twestival is an event that groups one’s online presence on Twitter, with a very real impact on the ground.

Twestival is an annual day celebrated globally by the world’s twitter communities. The main goal behind the day of celebration is to raise money to support a certain cause or charity. Twestival has been going on for a few years in Lebanon and this year, Twestival 2011 was fundraising to support the NGO Faire Face, which provides free mammograms and psychological support for breast cancer victims.

The venue was Tawlet Souk El Tayyeb in Mar Mikhail, where only healthy, traditional Lebanese dishes are served, made by some of the tweeps themselves like @sdkaaa and @gabdallah. @sdarine, @funkyozzi and @coo1pink all took the mic and introduced this year’s cause, shared life testimonies and promoted awareness about several issues that plague women with breast cancer.

After that, everyone enjoyed a delicious meal, plenty of arak and exquisite live jazz music.

Later, the tombola draw, which featured prizes that included everything from meals at Deek Duke, desginer t-shirts, Meen CDs and the grand prize: a brand new shiny Nokia N8.

The N8 was instead auctioned, and was sold for $400 to @o_sane, making the grand total fundraised this year 16,400 USD, all of which went to Faire Face who will use it to provide free mammograms for women who cannot afford it.

I won’t bother posting photos taken from my mobile, just look at the amazing Flickr gallery by @ritakml here

So, twitter isn’t just for revolutions and killing time, it’s a whole lot more =) so follow me @GinoRaidy

Hady Chehlaoui - Me, supporting One Wig Stand