Academy

Is He A Real Man? The “Vrai Djo” SFCG Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo or DRC, sexual violence is a community-wide problem.  Rape, in the DRC has been used as a weapon of war and sadly continues to increase even after.  According to the peacebuilding NGO Search for Common Ground or SFCG, it is estimated that there are over 400,000 surviving rape victims living in the DRC today.  In this environment violence against women has become normative behavior. 

SFCG says “the campaign turns common assumptions about male behavior in familiar situations, such as going to a job interview, on their head. The peacebuilding organization Search for Common Ground, believes sexual violence is best addressed when men are active partners in the solution.
According to C-Picks at C-Change, Country Director Dirk Koch, explains “One often sees campaigns that denounce men’s behaviors and say what they should not do, but one never sees a campaign that motivates men to become positive, to find their inner strength, and to respect women and girls.”

The Vrai Djo Campaign features five short films and three audio spots which are broadcasted throughout the country. The PSAs (Public Service Announcements) feature Celeo Scram, “a Congolese superstar with a positive image”, In the spots he says he says “A real man (Vrai Djo) is a man who knows what he wants and knows how to control himself.

The campaign instead shows a person who respects himself and respects the women and girls around him.” The films portray scenarios that often lead to sexual harassment or abuse which would be familiar in the Congolese context (e.g., a job interview or a wife returning late from work) and shows instead opportunities for men to support the women in their lives.

Talk: Craig Newmark on Building a Community of Trust

In the movie Hot Tub Time Machine, John Cusack goes “back to the future” and discovers that his friend Lou has become incredibly wealthy due to a little search-engine-that-could that he aptly named “Lougle.” It’s a fun example of how an individual’s name can become a familiar household term based on a single choice to use that name in a product.

Can you think of another example of this? You got it—craigslist. In the States, craigslist is synonymous with connection. Hundreds of thousands of people utilize the ad-free website to find jobs, frisbee leagues, used furniture, and to barter their services. The founder of this incredible site is Craig Newmark, a self-professed nerd who has dedicated his life to customer service.

At the iStrategy conference on global digital marketing in San Francisco, Craig Newmark was not there to speak about his great invention. Rather, he wanted to talk about where he’s putting his energies now: craigconnects.

At first look, craigconnects seems to be a way for him to organize his personal efforts on giving back: military veterans, technology for good, and back-to-basics journalism. And right now, it is. But a few points that were brought up in his talk on how to build a community of trust provide a few hints as to the potential of his own model.

Social Photography in your Communication Strategy: Instagram

Instagram is huge. Recently it became the largest mobile social network. Remarkable because the social photography app is only available for the iPhone until now.
I started with Instagram also last year. I stopped with Twitter and now I’m trying to express myself without words. I love it.

I was curious if brands, and in particular non-profits, use the network in their communication strategy. That was a disappointing search.
Socialfresh published an article in the autumn last year with a small list of brands using Instagram. And I found a smaller list of non-profits.

One of them is charity: water, the non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.
Gorgeous pictures from their field work and inside pictures which give the viewer a nice insight in their work.
I spoke with Paull Young lately, the Director of Digital at charity: water. I was curious about their thoughts and strategy. Read it after the break.

Clean water from a charity: water project in Brus Laguna, Honduras.

Interview: David de Rothschild gives nature a voice

David de Rothschild is an adventurer, environmentalist, eternal optimist and the founder of myoo.com a group that uses exploration, adventure and storytelling as a way to give nature a voice. David is leading a new generation of action-oriented change makers and reigniting a collective spirit of hope that the fate of our planet can be rewritten. Driven by his immeasurable curiosity for the natural world he has journeyed to both poles and ventured to some of the most remote and fragile ecosystems on our planet in order to bring widespread attention and innovative solutions to urgent global environmental issues.

Photo: Matthew Grey

In 2006, David spent over 100 days crossing the Arctic from Russia to Canada, which made him the youngest British person, to ever reach both geographical poles. By then he had already become one of only 14 people ever to cross the continent of Antarctica, and was part of a team that broke the world record for the fastest ever crossing of the Greenland ice cap. In 2007, David led a field expedition to the rainforest of Ecuador, to draw attention to the damage international oil companies have caused by drilling the vast oil reserves.

Underlying this is David’s unwavering belief that we must work together and question a ‘that’s just the way we’ve done it’ mentality, best exemplified in David’s 2010 expedition; the Plastiki. In early 2010 he sailed across the Pacific Ocean on a catamaran made buoyant by 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles to alert the world to the shocking effects of single use plastics on the health of our oceans. The message and journey was seen and heard around the world by millions.

In November 2011 David and a core crew traveled into the heart of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest to discover the effects of the controversial Belo Monte dam project as part of MYOO’s ARTiculate series.
David is recognized as a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, Clean up the World Ambassador, UNEP Climate Hero and a Young Global Leader respectively.

Read the interview after the break.

The campaign evaluation is also something to share

In all stages of campaigning the final stage is the one which is mostly invisible for the outside world. We write for over six years now about nonprofit campaigns and we rarely see the results. The results that’s what matters finally.
The result of a fundraising campaign is clear. It is about the final amount. In awareness campaigning it is more difficult. A goal like behaviour change is difficult to calculate. 
It don’t have to be hard figures. Within an organization a campaign evaluation is a routine. But how is that for the outside world? For all volunteers?

At Osocio we judge mostly on design or copy. Now we are talking about the results.

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when Priscilla Brice-Weller shared her campaign evaluation on Google+ and Facebook.

Priscilla did a campaign with her organization All Together Now earlier this year. The campaign with the name Give Racism The Finger was the first national campaign to erase racism in Australia.
We wrote about it in May this year.

She published the evaluation on the All Together Now website using Storify.
I talked with Priscilla last week about this evaluation.

NGOs seldom publish a review of their campaign results. Why did you do it?

One of the key strategies we decided on when we started All Together Now in 2010 was that all our work would be evidence-based. This includes publicly sharing the results of our programs to show what works and what doesn’t in anti-racism campaigning (i.e. providing evidence).
So we published a review because doing so is at the very core of our work. The more creative the review is, the more likely people are to read it.

Read more after the break.

John Thackara: Design for things that matter

Lecture on the Department of Design’s introduction course for the new MA students “Wellbeing in the Age of Wicked Problems”. That was in Aalto in Finland.
The course was about the theme of wellbeing, the complex challenges and opportunities that design faces today and tomorrow. Design is now more thought as a strategic and public activity, where in the projects we recognise the needs of the other client, the humankind.

John Thackara is a writer, speaker and design producer, and director of Doors of Perception. He is blogger at Design Observer and he is the author of twelve books including In The Bubble: Designing In A Complex World and Wouldn’t It Be Great If….

Exclusive interview with FEMEN’s founder, Anna Hutsol

A few weeks ago, I contacted Anna Hutsol, the founder and leader of Ukraine’s FEMEN movement, for an interview via Facebook. It proved difficult, as Anna is not only extremely busy but we speak different languages and required the services of a translator.

FEMEN have risen from being a local protest group in Kiev, known for their use of nudity and street theatre to protest Ukrainian sex tourism, to an international phenomenon tackling issues such a nuclear power and Saudi bans on women driving. The frank sexuality of their protests have gained them worldwide media attention, and they continue to build social media solidarity with other activist groups through FEMEN - International Support Team (FIST). They even, famously, bullied Mark Zuckerberg into reinstating their Facebook account after it was removed due to all the topless posts.

This morning, I finally received my answers in broken English. Anna did not address all my questions, but she did provide some insights into FEMEN’s origins, its mission, and its future.

I have taken the liberty of “cleaning up” the English responses. (* I have also included the raw translations of answers following, in case there is any misunderstanding.)

OSOCIO: How was the idea of FEMEN first conceived?

Anna: It was not difficult, as everyone knows how many problems are here in Ukraine and as Ukrainian girls we feel that every day in our minds and bodies. So all we needed was to be brave enough to tell the world about it. That’s why we decided to show that women are protesting, and to use our bodies as weapon in the fight.

OSOCIO: Have your objectives changed since then?

Anna: Yes, we have added many objectives to our program. But like in the beginning we still demand to stop sex tourism and prostitution in Ukraine. We demand to
let women develop themselves.

OSOCIO: How do you respond to critics who say that topless protest objectifies women?

Anna: As young, simple Ukrainian girls, we believe in what we are doing, and we know what we need to do to protect ourselves. FEMEN was trying different
ways of fighting and in our experience we understood that only radical things can change the situation. At this time, in this country, only radical women’s protest can shake the world of passive women.

More Q&As and pictures (nudity) after the break.

Walking With Sluts

Slutwalk Toronto happened today, as scheduled. Some 1500 women, men, and people of all gender expressions, converged in front of the Ontario Provincial Legislature at Queen’s Park, and marched peacefully to police headquarters on College St. This was in response to an incident on January 24th, when a Toronto Police spokeperson caused widespread outrage by suggesting that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”.

A group of Toronto women took to social media to organize a show of strength against the blaming of rape victims by the system.

photo by Woresh Mean

A couple of days ago, I conducted an e-mail interview with Sonya JF Barnett, one of the lead organizers of the event.

Q: How did you feel when you first heard the words “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” coming from the Toronto Police?

A: Absolutely appalled. Even though I’m engaged in a sexually liberated and creative community that uses the modern definition of the word ‘slut’, hearing it slung from a police officer was very disheartening. I knew exactly what context he had used it in {as an epithet} and I realized that education in the use of the word was important for our protective services.

Q: How did the concept of Slutwalk come about? Were you influenced by any other movements?

A: SlutWalk was conceptualized as a reaction to the harshness of the word. If it was going to be slung out, we were going to sling it back, with our own spin. We weren’t influenced necessarily by specific movements, but by simple motivation to do something. Our team is a spirited bunch that are confident in standing up for what we believe in.

(Interview continued after the break)

About Fearless & Common Revolution: Alex Bogusky

It looks as if we are on a sure way to self-destruction. All the signs are pointing to it: climate change, environmental issues, world hunger, water pollution, air pollution, insufficient drinking water for billions of people ... The list goes on and seems to grow longer every day.

At times even the most optimistic despair in light of all this. The major driving force of all these problems seems to be an almost ideological way of consumption, some already call ‚consumerism’.
We consume without thinking. We consume without a conscience.

Everybody is part of this, everybody consumes: food, clothing, devices and machines, energy … We use up a lot but don’t think much about it. We do not give a thought about what we consume, how we consume, if we do damage to ourselves, others, or the environment.
Are we really that unscrupulous or have we just become complacent, thinking we cannot change anything?

Alex Bogusky believes in the influence of the buyer, he sees revolutionary power with us, the shoppers. According to him, it is time to expect more from companies and brands.

He initiated the projects ”FearLess” and ”Common” to create a new agreement between consumers and corporations.

I spoke with Alex Bogusky about his projects, about the Fearless and the Common Consumer Revolution.

Emily Pilloton: Teaching design for change

Osocio visitors who are familiar with social design know Emily Pilloton. She is founder of Project H, the project to help develop effective design solutions for people who need it most.
In 2009 Emily also wrote Design Revolution, a book about 100-plus objects and systems designed to make people’s lives better.

Earlier this year she spoke at TEDGlobal about her move to rural Bertie County, in North Carolina USA. She’s teaching a design-build class that engages high schoolers’ minds and bodies while bringing smart design and new opportunities to the poorest county in the state.
She strongly believe in these 6 assumptions and practice them all in Bertie Country:

• Design through action
• Design with, not for
• Design systems, not stuff
• Document, share and measure
• Start locally, and scale globally
• Build

More about the project in this article from Emily Pilloton at design mind.

Related post: Hippo Roller by Project H Design

Free download: She Decides

Women make more than 80 percent of all health-related decisions for their families (this is a U.S. Stat). That goes for choosing a brand of children’s cold medicine to selecting a health insurance plan. Yet many health-related organizations miss the mark when it comes identifying them as a critical audience – or understanding what motivates them.

A new Fenton guide, She Decides: How to Reach the Most Important Audience for Your Health Campaign, is designed to help health leaders and communicators who are shaping policy or encouraging healthy behaviors harness the power of this core demographic.

The guide explores four tried-and-true marketing principles that effectively target women through Four C’s. The principles — Care, Connect, Cultivate and Control — drawn from Fenton’s analysis of market research, successful campaigns from both the corporate and nonprofits sectors, as well as the latest in brain science.

She Decides is available for download at: http://bit.ly/shedecides

Round Table: How a local campaign went global - Embrace Life

The most successful social campaign from this winter is definitely the Embrace Life campaign from the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership (SSRP). An road safety campaign without shocking images is pointing us to a new approach in communication.
The video already got more than 1.4 million views on YouTube. A fan made a group page on Facebook. And here on Osocio the pageviews are still coming in.
I got many questions about the campaign so I decided to do a co-creation interview with the help from our fans on Facebook and Linkedin.
Thanks Nedra, Tatjana, Reuben and Bas.

The man behind the campaign is Neil Hopkins, the Communications Manager from SSRP. Neil was very helpful with answering our questions. Read it after the break.

Round Table: Better World Advertising

“I started Better World Advertising (BWA) because I saw the power that social marketing could have in helping individuals, and society as whole, in solving issues that cause a lot of pain and suffering.  I still believe that getting information to people and delivering messages that motivate them to make better decisions has unlimited potential for good.”

As said by Les Pappas, President & Creative Director of San Fransisco and New York based social advertising and marketing agency Better World Advertising. Regular visitors of Osocio know the work of BWA very well. Time to talk with BWA. In this new chapter of the Round Table we spoke with Les Pappas and Emily Foran, Art Director at BWA. Again a collaboration with James David from The Groundswell Collective. This interview is crossposted at his great blog.

Book Review: Do Good Design

For the last six years I’ve taught a class on socially conscious design at Virginia Commonwealth University called Design Rebels. I created the class after teaching general design classes and seeing that no one was talking about the issues that drove me to start my on socially conscious design firm in 2001. Namely that design is an extremely powerful tool for affecting change in the world and designers need to be making conscious choices about how and for whom they do this work.

Through readings, discussions, presentations, and self-directed community projects, Design Rebels introduces the students to the range of gray areas they will encounter in their professional lives. But when I started the class the only book that really dealt with the related issues was Naomi Kline’s No Logo and it was not directed specifically towards designers. Lacking a proper textbook I created a course pack culled from dozens of books and articles that represented the range of issues that I wanted to class to discuss. And every year I have added and removed articles attempting to refine it into a functional handbook for the students, while keeping an eye out for something to fill the void.

Round Table: The Change

Branding is a thing typically left to corporations with the money to invest in coordinated marketing plans, but Jerry Stifelman and Sami Grover don’t believe it has to be that way.  The Change is the name of their firm, and they bring brand-building services to nonprofits and “good-for-the-world” businesses.

Visitors to the company website are immediately confronted with the motto: “The truth is your best tool.” Making use of an organization’s conviction, personality, and sense of mission are key to brand-building in their view, which they conceive of as apolitical. 

James David from The Groundswell Collective asked me to collaborate doing a interview with Jerry and Sami from The Change. That gives Osocio the opportunity to start a new serie: Round table. We will do interviews on a irregular basis with all kind of do gooders. Straight from the war zone of the design industry.
Do you want to read more? See Groundswell Talks, the interview serie at the Groundswell blog.