The young people of the developed world are increasingly turning to social networking sites to organize and get the word out in their efforts to help those in developing countries gain access to better education and lives. Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are now transforming from simply a way to maintain friendships into a tool for social justice.
Katie Lusk, 22 is using Facebook to promote Hearts and Minds, a nonprofit organization based in New York that acts as an information clearinghouse for young people to learn about and get involved with global issues. Lusk had used Facebook for two years and says she saw several aspects, such as the ability to form groups and the recently added "causes" application, as a good way to get in touch with Hearts and Minds' audience. 'Facebook lets us put up discussions, videos, and photos, allowing us to strengthen our cause with proof, or give examples of how our organization helps,? she says.
Perhaps most important for small non-profits, Facebook's cause pages include a space where people can donate, helping raise money for over a million registered nonprofits. Anyone can join a cause to raise awareness and support for the issues he or she cares about -- nearly 400,000 people have already.
CEW's Facebook page. © Children's Equality Worldwide
Though only in existence for a few months, Hearts and Minds? profile and causes pages have already generated interest in volunteering and prompted questions about what the organization does, Lusk says. 'I think getting our word out there is invaluable, and we won't know how valuable it is until maybe a few years in the future,? she says.
"Facebook can get the word out faster than any type of face-to-face communication."- Glynnis Eldridge, 16
Nonprofit organizations aren't the only groups using Facebook to further their causes. Glynnis Eldridge, 16, a senior at Chase Collegiate School, uses it to create awareness of her brainchild, Children's Equality Worldwide, a club that raises money for global causes through monthly fundraisers. Eldridge, who attended an international school in New York until the end of middle school, says that when she entered high school she was in complete culture shock. She had been exposed to what living conditions are like for people in other countries and even within the United States. She said she wanted to create a club that would expose her more sheltered classmates to living conditions in other parts of the world.
Creating a Facebook group allowed her to take the experience well beyond the walls of her school. 'I found out at my school that Facebook can get the word out faster than any type of face-to-face communication,? she says.
Facebook also helps groups connect with young people because it allows them to learn about issues on their own terms, when they're ready for it, Eldridge says. 'Students can get more information that way because time is limited at school.? It can be more convenient for students to read the information provided by Web sites in their spare time when they can really grapple with the ideas presented, she adds.
Eldridge's group has raised money for AIDS research and increased awareness about global poverty and world hunger through a campaign to encourage people to wear white, the color used to promote the Global Campaign Against Poverty. Next up: the group plans to use its Facebook pages to raise money to send laptop computers to schools around the world.
MySpace and YouTube have been particularly successful at enabling young people to share videos to raise awareness about the issues they care about. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals is one video providing background and offering suggestions on ways MySpace users can get involved with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the set of eight targets set by world leaders to improve lives and livelihoods around the world by 2015. Another video chronicles the creation of a Millennium Development Goals mural by a group of young people in Ireland. YouTube's popularity and the ability of users to embed videos in their MySpace profiles, which also include discussion spaces and blogs, make this particular way of distributing information potentially very powerful. These videos not only offer youth the chance to educate themselves about the MDGs, but they also offer a way for young people to inspire others in their social networks.
Still from 'Achieving the Millennium Development Goals' on MySpace TV. © Christian Picciolini
Facebook has over 50 million active users and is growing by over 1 million a week. MySpace is currently the sixth most popular Web site in the world; YouTube the third. Clearly, these Internet sites have the potential to help organize and inspire young people who access them everyday. These social network sites could prove to be powerful tools young people can use to help improve living conditions in developing countries. Young people, who spend a lot of time online anyway, are increasingly aware of the power their electronic entertainment venues enjoy to enact positive changes in the world.
To read more about social innovators read OneWorlds Perspectives Magazine: Are We Making Poverty History'
