Eva Keogan, aka Nixdminx, was one of the bloggers who went to Bangladesh with Save the Children and helped make #blogladesh a successful campaign. Here, she writes about using your blog for a charitable cause. Over to Eva:
I spent a lot of my childhood on the charity trail with my parents raising money for a charity for Autistic adults – there was no adequate provision for it and I have a brother with Autism. I often despaired about where he would end up and so I grew up with this fear perched on my shoulder.
I have stood on streets rattling a collection tin back in the day when you were not allowed by law to speak or shout – a far cry from the chuggers (or “charity muggers”) who greet us daily. It was pretty tough. I would often get scoffed at ‘I’m not giving my money to artistics – they don’t need it!’ Funny as it sounds, it’s true.
The flipside was that there were many events, bric-a-brac sales, charity auctions, cake sales, you name it, I was dragged into it. At one time Felicity Kendall was the patron of the charity and Joanna Lumley came to a fundraiser and I met her, she was best known for Purdey not Patsy back then and I was in awe (and she even spoke to me).
Bitten by the fund raising bug, I managed to drag some poor actor kicking and screaming into my all girls school to represent the charity and we raised £2000 that term which was a great success, I put it all down to his charming good looks – he was after all, the After Eight man from the ad, my classmates were swooning.
So fast forward 20 years on and this all comes back to me, but in a new and changed world where charities are no longer home grown passionate causes led by those people directly affected, if not by proxy, and they’re vast global corporate organisations. We’ve had years of ‘Pink’ and now breast cancer is on the wane, the ‘Lighthouse’ shines less brightly because HIV and AIDS awareness is high and people can live with their condition. I am not saying that suffering has been abated, but due to high profile campaigns, change has happened.
So what does this mean to our community of bloggers? We have voices. I’m happy to see many of you with autistic children speaking up and sharing your experiences, it almost makes me sad that my Mum didn’t have the opportunity – she would have been able to make a big difference. Happily my brother has a great life now, one which I would never dared to imagine and it makes me feel confident that with effort and tenacity, and a touch of audacity, we can all look forward to better things.
Since January 2010, I’ve been able to get involved in some of the bigger picture tweeting and blogging – and so have we all and in such simple ways.
As you have probably noticed, I’ve been involved in the #blogladesh trip on behalf of Save the Children – it’s taken a huge amount of energy to do this and our efforts as well as your signatures on the peitition presented to Nick Clegg helped show government that maternal and infant health is a vital issue to us. As a result, the UN Summit concluded with the announcement of major new commitments for women’s and children’s health and other initiatives against poverty.
Social media has made campaigning incredibly dynamic and swept away the barriers that many of us may have had before. Twitter is the perfect tool for this and these are the hashtags that have worked brilliantly this year have grown awareness and funds; #bloggersforhaiti, #bloggersforpakistan, #blogladesh. Even better, they’ve been used globally and have become the twitter byword for community spirit and spontaneous communication, breaking down barriers and pushing out the message. As you have already seen, once the message is out there, other people carry the torch be they celebrities or niche bloggers, everyone does there bit.
I salute every single one of you who has tried this out. I also say to those of you that haven’t, it’s easy to get involved with a retweet or a blog post, or a Facebook comment and link on your own page. Awareness and ‘social media buzz’ keep the momentum going and the pioneering spirit of us bloggers maintains the ‘novelty’ effect for more traditional media.
The value of the blogladesh trip has gained credibility in the mainstream media not only because it’s a unique campaign but also because the general population is tired and cynical of the bombardment of messages in other media. Put simply, a story about a cause has been created in a new and innovative way.
We are not the bandwagon, we are leading lights, every single one of us.
If you have a cause, please shout about it on Twitter, we’ll all retweet it. Put it in your blog and we’ll share it, place a link on Facebook and we’ll comment and like it and let’s not forget youtube and flickr – what great ways they are to furnish a story with great footage and imagery.
On top of that, there’s no need to be afraid of contacting your local web sites – they welcome community spirit and human interest stories. I’ve have been contacted by some sites because they saw my story about blogladesh on another site – the snowball effect at work!
And what about the relevance of your charities and good causes? They don’t have to be global, it’s the local voices that count. But one thing I can guarantee you is that once you’ve put your message out there, there’s no telling how far it will travel which lends an added air of mystery, excitement and fantastic potential. Beats rattling a tin on a street corner any day, doesn’t it?
About Blogladesh
It’s not unique to Bangladesh but our visit has highlighted many of the issues that are faced by children and families globally, and we have quickly become intensely aware of what’s at stake. The price is too high to ignore.
It’s the simple things that make a big difference. All we need is enough people do this one simple thing. EVERY ONE can save a child’s life, so take action now and press for change.
To find out more about how you help support Save the Children, visit their website, www.savethechildren.org.uk.
Photo credit: Eva Keogan