Social Media 4 Good

Exploring the use of Social Media for NGOs, non-profit organizations and to support humanitarian relief

Over the last few days I came across a few things having to do with communicating with beneficiaries. The first is a short video about selling condoms in Congo. The second is a sign advising women in Liberia where they can go for help if they have been raped.

The Red Cross Red Crescent created a Flickr slideshow with photos from Haiti after the earthquake. This will be updated continuously. If you want to add it to your own blog, you can use this code: <iframe align=”center” src=”http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?set_id=72157623207618658″ width=”500″ height=”500″ frameBorder=”0″ scrolling=”no”></iframe><br /><center><small>Created with <a href=”http://www.flickrslideshow.com”>flickr slideshow</a>.</small></center> If you want to change the size, please change the numbers marked in red. Created with flickr slideshow.

I have been using Flickr for about two years to increase visibility of the work of Red Cross Red Crescent. Today, I’d like to share some of the lessons I’ve learned.

I know many NGOs who produce feature-length advocacy films to state their case against e.g. climate change, human trafficking, dragnet-fishing etc. And I am certain that many of them could be greatly enhanced by an approach like “Us Now”.

About a week ago, US comedian Sarah Silverman posted a video called “Sell the Vatican, Feed the world.”  It has since been viewed almost 500,000 times and has been tweeted, commented and blogged about. I really like this video. I love satire and I think this video does a great job of raising awareness for world hunger. If you haven’t seen it, watch it before reading on. In case you don’t know Sarah Silverman, I should warn you: She is[...]