The curtains for the Afrika Vuka Climate workshop were drawn with an interesting session on Digital Organizing. This session focused on how activists across the continent can mobilise and campaign effectively in the face of a global pandemic. The panelist, Joseph Ibrahim of the Coal Free Nigeria Campaign and Ibra Cassis of Save Bargny campaign in Senegal took the participants on a ride of their experiences in digital organizing.
For Joseph Ibrahim, he emphasized the importance of establishing the objective of the campaign and how it aligns with existing traditions, culture, religion, and laws of the people. He then stated that these identified objectives should be communicated to the target audience using the most compelling stories.
He advised activists to place a high premium on telling the truth while telling stories of frontline communities as this will be the basis of a successful campaign.
On his part, Ibra Casis highlighted the demographics of internet users across the globe. He stated that with the number of people who use digital platforms on a daily basis, it will be unwise to disregard digital organizing. He further stated that digital organizing is the future and all activists should embrace it.
The panelist proposed a number of tips on digital organizing such as:
- Determine a hashtag for the key message of the campaign e.g #CoalFreeNigeria
- Identify the digital platform where your target audience is.
- Produce quality visual and audiovisual content for storytelling
- Use social media such as Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Linkedin to share quality content
- Tag your target audience on your post
- Use online petitions to get people to commit to the campaign
- Publish articles and news items online.
By Joseph Ibrahim of the Coal Free Nigeria Campaign