Thursday, April 16, 2009

Social media for social change

Yesterday, it was announced that Hugh Jackman is pledging $100,000 to charity based off of Twitter appeals. This seems to be part of an emerging trend of using social media to impact positive social change.

Throughout my life, I've been involved in numerous charitable organizations. I currently volunteer at three - The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT), Street Soccer USA and Global Youth Partnership for Africa. The emergence of social media has opened the door for organizations such as these to communicate with much wider audiences and connect more easily with interested parties on a global scale.

One program that has excelled digitally is the Tap Project, a UNICEF project run by the New York-based office of Droga5. The campaign is based on the following premise:

Every day, 4,200 children die of water-related diseases and nearly 900 million people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water.

Solution: Restaurants would ask their patrons to donate $1 or more for the tap water they usually enjoy for free, and all funds raised would support UNICEF’s efforts to bring clean and accessible water to millions of children around the world.

For this year's World Water Day (March 22) and World Water week, they created Tap Project Radio, an internet radio station to benefit the Tap Project for UNICEF. The project was a week-long collaboration between DJs, musicians, celebrities and advertising icons to raise awareness for the issue. DJs included OK GO, Rilo Kiley, Duran Duran as well as celebrity DJ’s like Elijah Wood and Rosanne Arquette. The goal was to raise $10,000 to give 10,000 kids clean drinking water for 40 days. In addition, they created a Facebook fan page and Twitter feed for the radio station.

There is also a Twitter account for the organization in general. And, they are currently running a video submission contest for "What Water Means to Me" to be featured on their YouTube channel. If you are interested in submitting, you can email your entry to tapproject@unicefusa.org.

More information on the thought process behind the Tap Project can be found here.

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