This is good... it answers the all important question raised about online activism. What is the impact of online activism on the actual cause?? Or is it often just all BS.
I had mentioned the Jaagore tweetup in my previous post in this series. I had been invited as a panelist on it :) along with some other very cool people. It was a real fun tweetup,
One cause I met a lot of fellow tweeps who I knew from Twitter and hadn't met in a while.
Two, also cause the discussion about social media and NGO's was quite brilliant, if I may say so myself. Bunch of us didn't realise where the time passed at all.
Some insights from the discussion,
Online to Offline connect
There are online campaigns for social causes but they are all virtual like 'light a virtual candle'. Usually these campaigns are started after traumatic incidents like terrorist attacks and such. So these acts coined 'armchair activism' by some, was questioned and a point raised was
An interesting point made by @hiyer was that these may not translate offline in terms of providing compensation or food to victims, but it does provide 'solace'. Even though no close person has been affected in these incidents people do get agitated/affected by incidents. Lighting virtual candles can help allay that agitation. Which is great and it will reflect in how these people are offline too.
I have been thinking that actual ground reality problems managing the logistics for the victims, taking steps to avoid such incidents again and so on can only be solved if people move beyond solace. Nothing wrong with solace but solace is not solution. Solution is a different word and would bring about a different world.
NGO's using Social Media
Another point raised probably by Chandni of @fundacause is that while some NGO's that do great work are present on social media they don't get any traction. A few suggestions that came pouring out were,
- Use creative language - often NGO's use machine language which really fails to pep people up to the cause.
- Objective - Be clear of what you want from the social media campaign!
- Realistic - Be realistic or get some opinions from social media consultants/professionals about what sort of realistic objectives you can set for the campaign
These are the few points I can recall right now. Other than that many NGO efforts on social media were pointed out and discussed. Jaagore's online campaign for social 'awakening' was also discussed. What they could improve on and what they were doing right.
Last Tuesday I participated in the #sm73 social media chat on Twitter. This chat happens every week on Tuesday around 8 or 9 'o' clock (it will be #sm74 next Tuesday). The topic was Social media and Non profits. A very interesting discussion ensued, but sadly I am not able to source the transcript.
With regards to this topic of social media and non-profits I have two examples to give out,
1. Sapling Project
Where a small effort started by Mumbai twitter peeps @ranjeet_walunj and @bombaylives has grown to a pan India effort in just a few months. All taken up by fellow tweeps all over India.
For more : http://www.thesaplingproject.com
2. Hamara Footpath
This is the street school I work for, I have mentioned it couple of times on this blog. Well basically we had a garage sale earlier this month. We started the publicity with a couple of Facebook updates and a event creation for it on our NGO page. In just a few days we had a number of leading national newspaper reporters wanting to cover us and the event. Not just print media, we even got covered on CNBC Awaaz!!
Needless to say after all this publicity we had a very successful event.
Refer: http://www.facebook.com/hamarafootpath
Increasing visibility globally and getting traditional media attention, I think are two major benefits of using social media platforms for non-profits.
Today is a tweetup on a similar topic, hosted by @jaagore Will blog my thoughts from there later as a second post to this series.
Really good read on stuff that people do! Making days count even if it is just by having fun....
A few days ago I realized something surprising: the situation with time is much the same as with money. The most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it having fun, but to spend it doing fake work. When you spend time having fun, you know you're being self-indulgent. Alarms start to go off fairly quickly. If I woke up one morning and sat down on the sofa and watched TV all day, I'd feel like something was terribly wrong. Just thinking about it makes me wince. I'd start to feel uncomfortable after sitting on a sofa watching TV for 2 hours, let alone a whole day.
And yet I've definitely had days when I might as well have sat in front of a TV all day—days at the end of which, if I asked myself what I got done that day, the answer would have been: basically, nothing. I feel bad after these days too, but nothing like as bad as I'd feel if I spent the whole day on the sofa watching TV. If I spent a whole day watching TV I'd feel like I was descending into perdition. But the same alarms don't go off on the days when I get nothing done, because I'm doing stuff that seems, superficially, like real work.
Read the entire article!
My NGO work with street kids around my area do help me avoid fake working..cause even if I feel the work I have done during the day is not that great.. the time spent with the kids at night (when we have our classes) does feel worth it. :)
Read this awesome poem by Khalil Gibran, on the Give India blog, totally cool!
Then said a rich man, "Speak to us of Giving."
And he answered:
You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?
There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Though the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.
It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;
And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving
And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.
You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.
And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.
Came across this video on Pluggd.in, its really cool. Takes some time to load but definitely a good watch.
This is why I feel that social entrepreneurship is really something people should be considering starting up, cause it has a social betterment aspect and also a profit making aspect which actaully makes the company more sustainable. Otherwise so often NGO's are halted or they remain small due to lack of funds or people (cause they dont hire).
In fact I have a social company idea.. am working on it. Will talk more on it when it is somewhat sketched out!
I was interviewed for this months, Yuva magazine. It was a feature on professionals who spend after work hours doing some social work. I must confess that I was a little tongue tied over the whole interview phone conversation.
Thats me with another HF volunteer Nupur in the cover picture. She chose to teach the kids a crazy, difficult origami heart in this class. I just sat there in the middle so I could get the picture taken :D
Paper rockets are more my forte rather than all this Dil ka maamla! Here is another photo the Yuva photographer took which is also quite cool!
All in all good fun, and Hamara Footpath gets some visibility this way!
IndiaSocial had started a social media case study contest some time back. The results have come in!
Couple of things to note is that these guys were pretty visible about getting case studies and they gathered only 37 submissions which is pretty few I feel. So for some reason while a lot of social media stuff seems to be happening in India its yet very difficult to fathom exactly what all and where all...
I plan to go through the winners in depth, looking forward to some very insightful read! Here are the winners for the long term initiatives,
Pratham Books
I checked this one out, seems very cool indeed. Using Skype and Scribd in very useful ways. In fact I am thinking of checking their books out, we could use them at our street school!
This one is a real surprise, an NGO using social media so well! A real treat.
Fastrack
I have also featured these guys on my blog recently. They are leading in number of Fans in India and have been quite engaging. In my opinion its a fairly OK campaign. I wish they had more competition, big consumer brands that are popular with youngsters should be able to achieve these stats, what do you think?
Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt. Ltd.
Cleartrip is again an interesting read. The way they handled the Kiruba incident was nothing big considering that I don't think they had much of a choice, since all of twitter, figuratively speaking was angry at the incident! I think this sort of open responses are a very basic requirement for a company when they are using social media.
Their Facebook and Twitter are fairly good.
I expected more from the third winner, maybe an offline/online campaign or some such at least.
I am yet to take a look at the winners in the short term category, will blog on it soon!
I used my Sony cybershot to record it, so you can also view my really old radio set :)
Follow Hamara Footpath on Facebook
A very interesting talk about what works on the Internet! As Alexis of Reddit explains any campaign needs to get the interest of people. Its not just about the cause or the gains at the end of the day. In fact it may not even be about your target audience!
Its about Being Social. People want to listen to stuff they are interested in.
Another example of such a campaign that I mentioned earlier is Stripey the Cub.
It started around the 1st of Feb and in a month it has close to 200,000 fans!! Stripey is something people find hard to resist!
Was just listening to the live feed of the Invisible Children standout outside a senator Coburn's office. This senator is holding up a bill to end war in Uganda, which is the longest running war in Africa.
Read more about this here.
[Invisible Children are a bunch of people working towards stopping war in Africa and helping child soldiers, who are just abducted and made to fight]
One of their ideas to get celebrities to talk about their cause, is called Twitter Bomb. They basically ask all the live stream viewers to send out a tweet about the cause (including #coburnsayyes and the website URL) to one particular celebrity at the same time. :D
I think its pretty cool!
Chase community contest just commenced where The Invisible Children won after some tough competition ! It seems however that these contests are now gonna be happening all the time - Courtesy the Pepsi Gods.
Pepsi Refresh Project
The corporate giant announced earlier that they have pulled out of SuperBowl advertising and is now opting for digital campaigns that would also help the society. The campaign is now live and it is very 'refreshing'!
I love the design, branding and theme colors!
How it Works
People can submit ideas until 1,000 ideas get accepted in a month. The ideas can be an individual making a change in society or a full fledged organization or anything in between.
These ideas are segregated into 6 different categories:
Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods and Education
They are then open for voting. A person can vote for 10 different ideas in a day. To vote he has to sign up via email or with Facebook connect.
Wins
Every month upto 32 ideas can win!
10 ideas that are individually powered so they are smaller in scale -amnt $5k each
10 ideas that are individuals/small group based, with probably higher scale - amnt $25k each
10 ideas for companies and organizations - amnt $50k each
2 ideas for organizations which can really scale up - amnt $250k each
So that is a LOT of money pouring into social projects!
But if you think you can rush off and submit your idea, as I did, think again cause,
Only legal residents of one of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia are eligible to apply.
Hmmmph
So what do you think of this campaign? It seems these contests to decide which charity to donate are now a happening trend!
I wanted to blog about social media activism since quite sometime. Came across the below scholarship and thought its about time. This activism is a very strong trait appearing in social media.
International Activist BlogHer Scholarship (for women), 2010
The due date for submissions was 31st January and is gone, but I still want to bring to fore this venture. If you know of somebody who should be nominated for this scholarship you can always do it next year.
One of the most recent examples I have come across is Stripey the Cub,
Its a fac
ebook fan page started on Saturday (2 days back) and right now it has 8000+ members! Couldn't help joining it as Stripey the little cub is so adorable!
It is part of the 'Save Our Tigers' Campaign, which is being aggresively promoted offline as well with celeb adverts on TV and such.
Another example of social media activism are 5 short films by Director Onir
These movies are on social issues like child sex abuse and plight of gay people.
Not only is social media being used to promote the film, they are getting the venture funded online too!
Rs
1,000 to Rs 5,000 - Acknowledgements on the blog/facebook and DVD Booklet(Treated as donation/pledge/feel good gesture)
Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000 - Acknowledgements in the end credits(Treated as donation/pledge/feel good gesture)
Rs 25,000 to Rs 100,000 - Return of your contribution at the time of the final film release and acknowledgement in the end credits
Rs 100,000 to Rs 15,00,000 – Acknowledgements in the beginning titles of the film and proportionate share in the profits.
Pretty Cool!
For more here is an article in Times of India: Going beyond Idle Twittering. A good read on various eco-friendly projects being started online for a lot of offline change!
Its quite amazing what all is happening on social media!
What really got me interested was when I saw that the number of votes for NGO's was increasing by huge numbers!
I think this is a great case study to see how tens of thousands of people have been mobilized by online activities (maybe some offline ones too) to vote on Facebook, for the charity of their choice.
Yesterday Early:
Late Yesterday:
Today:
A jump of about 20,000 people who voted for Twloha Inc! Moreover if you consider that many of these NGO's really don't have any ongoing social media campaigns beyond a Facebook page or Twitter and a website. Usually these are managed by volunteers who are not professionals in online marketing or any such.
Amazing!
So go ahead and caste your votes. Some of the NGO's I voted for,
Invisible Children Inc: Serious concept. They are working towards rehabilitating kids abducted and made into soldiers of war torn nations! The little experience I have with street kids only lets me imagine how difficult what they are attempting to do is.
Feel Your Boobies: I came across this campaign while looking into the Whats your Bra color Viral that happened a few days ago. I love the concept of something as kinky and rad as this to be crucial for something as serious and morbid as breast cancer.
Voting for NGO's this way is always a trouble for me cause they are all so important! The world has too many causes. Let me know who you are voting for!
I have been slow to respond to this Haiti crisis. Frankly, I do not know for what reason maybe the large geographical distance, lack of any contacts in Haiti or because I see too much hyping of small things around me, but for quite some time I did not respond to the Haiti crisis at all. Maybe I am just growing old and cynical.
Anyway I finally came around and posted this blog, also I am following @redcross on twitter, they are putting up constant updates on the situation, that should help me get involved in any way I can.
Here is a link to 6 reliable charities... The simplest way I think is to,
Text "HAITI" to "90999" to donate $10 to the Red Cross (prolly only for US people)
I am a little dazed, it would be so difficult to cope with a disaster of this sort if it happened somewhere closeby. Even if I could help I might not know how etc.. I am thinking of taking up a disaster relief management kind of small course which gives the basic 101 in such situations.
One thing that I have seen after spending time with social networking is that one never really knows what goes viral and how! One such incident has started sometime last night. Women on Facebook have been pasting colors on their status updates.
Apparently those colors are the color of the bra those women are wearing right then and it is being done to spread the awareness of breast cancer!
It is not yet clear who has started this 'campaign' if it can be called that and whether it was truly for breast cancer. What is clear is that it has gone viral cause I have found many of my non-techie friends send out these updates. (I always check whether my non-techie friends know about stuff to figure out whether it is truly viral).
Moreover many top traffic blogs like Guy Kawasaki's Holy Kaw, Mashable have reported it and connected it with Beast Cancer! So while the actual campaign is kinda odd, as it does not spread awareness of cancer by itself, these posts sure do!
How much do you know about Breast Cancer? ( I scored merely 40%, really worth taking esp. women)
The 15th UN Climate Change Conference hosted in Copenhagen, Denmark is currently ongoing, from Dec 7 to Dec 18. It is widely anticipated by people wanting to lower the carbon emissions by countries.
In the initial phase there was a turmoil when some emails were leaked. These emails proposed a deal between at least US, UK and Denmark, maybe few other countries. Some of the disturbing points in this deal being,
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";
• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance;
It is tough for these talks to really focus on the real issues when things get mired in politics. If the climate change scenario is seen by the richer countries as yet another way to become a dampener to the development of poorer countries then it is truly sad!
India's stand in the climate change scenario....
Another interesting article describes the the ground situation of the conference as
This is shaping up to be Cannes, Davos, Lollapalooza, and a Trekkie convention all wrapped in one. Salesy, power-broker heavy, loudly creative, geeky...Total cleantech chaos.
Quite happening!
Some time back, maybe a month ago one of our volunteers at our street school had an unpleasant incident with some of the parents. They called her under a false pretext that one of the kids had, had an accident. When she did reach there, they surrounded her and verbally abused, threatened her for many long minutes. Their mannerisms were one step away from physical abuse. It was shocking, because she is one of the people who is most involved with these parents lives. She visits them in hospitals, arranges doctor meetings, listens to their grievances and of course helps out with the kids a lot!
One of the street guys died from AIDS, despite all our attempts at getting him to take some medicines and get hospitalized. Unbelievably his wife keeps muttering that we did nothing for him!
Due to all such incidents often volunteers working with these people become cynical cause these people do not have the necessary mentality or discipline needed to bring CHANGE in their lives.
The horse can be taken to the water, but how can it be made to drink?
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Some thoughts and aftermaths of my blog post about the really harrowing time I had at Isha Yoga Center.
- A day after my blog post, I got a call from Swami Suyagna (the HR monk). This was a surprise! Until now I have gotten absolutely NO communications from their side, despite the fact that I have told many prominent monks that I was very disturbed by their organization. Most told me to forget about it or they insulted me.
(Should we call this power of blogging?)
- The conversation was a disappointment, cause he tried to justify whatever he had done with 'procedure' except that this 'procedure' was not implemented for any other volunteers from cities.
(The only bright side was that I was now able to tell him how nonsensical what he was saying sounded! :p)
- It has also made me think about all the other people with whom I know such stuff has happened in this organization. If they did go public with their experiences maybe the admin would pay more attention (albeit for the wrong reasons), and there may not be another person who is so utterly neglected!
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I stayed at the Isha Yoga Center for a year as a full time volunteer. It has been an ordeal and mentally scarring. I have tried talking to some other monks there, especially the ones I knew while I was staying there but those talks have not been satisfactory, often they have disturbed me even more due to their responses.
I was refused bedding by Swami Suyagna (the HR monk). So for the initial almost 6 months I was staying without any pillow, bedsheet from the ashram. I slept on a straw mat, with a thin sheet I had got from home. In the winters I couldn't sleep cause I kept shivering at night. I was alone in a room with tamilians many from villages. All English speaking volunteers had much better accommodations and facilities.
At my work area (temple) I was insulted, ignored, pushed around and rudely made fun of in my face. Monks who were in silence they did not speak, would come to the lotus stand and tell my coworker that I was crazy via sign language, for no reason I could fathom. So effectively there was no way for me to talk about my accommodation nightmares there.
On numerous occasions Swami Suyagna, Swami Udhava, Swami Shwetaketu, Rajarathinam and many other prominent, administrative people of the ashram stressed on the fact that the ashram was a place to 'work'. Not once did anyone suggest I do more sadhana. To the extent that I was even explicitly told that my practices were expendable but work was not by these people, and that working would be better a sadhna for me than my practices.
I am from one of the poshest areas of Mumbai, having studied in one of the best colleges in India. Moreover I had come to the ashram after talking to Sadhguru and he having really encouraged me to come. I had informed this explicitly to Swami Suyagna, yet no bedding, no better accommodations and no reasons for denying the same.
Despite not being in the temple team, whenever I went to the temple after dinner, I was still expected to join the work. So much so that I have been asked to get up when meditating and made to work by Swami Adirupa many, many times. Even if I said no, I was forced. The work would usually include washing the Teerthakund Bathrooms.
Effectively I was bullied into work for more than 10 hrs a day, 7 days a week for months. I barely had any time to sit in the temple, less yoga practices and no Silence break (I asked for silence but was refused by Swami Suyagna).
Things came to a hilt when I was eve-teased by a senior monk (sanyasi) there, when I was alone in the dining room. Many people there have complained that the monks flirt a lot, but as yet I had not come across such physical misbehavior!
What made this incident worse was not having anyone to speak to within the organization due to the above 'treatment'. The idea of complaining to my family back in Mumbai was something I did not think, partly due to shock and partly because I could not conceptualize such a thing. Definitely I have since then been wary of the safety of women in that place due to the monks.
Finally it was only through Sadhguru's intervention (I wrote him a letter which got passed through to him), that I was given some respite. He told me to stop most of my work and spend loads of time meditating in the temple, doing practices etc... Despite this I was told by many monks and senior volunteers to 'disregard Sadhguru and keep working.'
He (Sadhguru) kept going out of his way to speak to me and make me feel at home there, even talking to me in Gujarati, however the admin was still a nightmare.
This made me realize that being at the ashram seems to be more of a matter of garnering the administrations support rather than having Sadhguru's support. Moreover fighting and having an aggressive disposition seems essential cause otherwise one just gets completely walked over by Monks!
Going to a globally known NGO to help them with their work has gotten me these extremely disturbing experiences. They have made me aware of discrimination, bullying and abuse being rampant and done by its admin in one of India's most respected spiritual organizations.
Jai Ho!
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