change: in a bottle

change: matters

I was invited to speak to my sociology professor’s class this past week about my charity: water project last year. I started by asking everyone how many times a day they consume and/or interact with water.

Went on to talk about how awesome and transparent charity: water is as an NGO.

Explained the water relief crisis in the world and why it has greater implications/consequences on a global scale. Encouraged the students to think about ways to get involved, leading into my project —> 

^ Labels printed on bottles/on the bottom of cups. Spoke about the fun you can have when reaching audiences; engagement touch points in guerrilla and ambient advertising can be really memorable/give you special leverage.

Showed the progress Change in a Bottle made, talked about how the students can also set up my charity:water campaigns as well. (Shout outs to S, K, T, & the “secret Santas” who helped out last year).

Find out how you can support charity: water at charitywater.org &mycharitywater.org.

We’re $4.00 away from reaching our goal of $100.00. Any donations/word of mouth promotions would be greatly appreciated!

The unexpected donations we got in class amounted to $18.57. Thanks to our kind classmates! (:

:D

We had a great time presenting in class today. We started by asking our classmates how many times they’ve “consumed” water (directly/indirectly) within the past 48 hours and then informing them on water “poverty” on a global scale—and how charity: water can help. We passed around two sample bottles of what we placed at the library and surprisingly got donations in class! Though we didn’t ask for donations, some of our classmates got our gist of “change in a bottle” before we introduced our campaign’s concept to them. Today’s positive turn out inspired me to work harder (: 

Great job team! 

- phim

poverty and policy

According to recent World Bank statistics, approximately 1.1 billion people live in extreme poverty with an income of less than $1 per day per person, measured at purchasing power parity. Another 1.6 billion live in moderate poverty, defined as living on between $1 and $2 per day. In other words, over 2.7 billion people—approximately—45 percent of the world’s population—survive on less than $2 a day. Virtually all of the world’s extreme and moderate poor live in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

- Ayelet Shachar

Poverty is not just about lack of money—it is about the lack of resources and necessities that one needs for survival. Welfare, as a global issue, is a goal that must be met, especially in light of sustainability.

The tensions that we have today over natural resources will only grow with time if we do not adopt sustainable (and fair) policies over vital resources like water.

happy earth day (:

library raid!

We raided the library today, in the name of good of course! (:

Three of us met at the library and distributed bottles of dirty water (with labels detailing the water crisis and how people can help) along with handouts with similar information. I had originally planned to raid the quad in a guerrilla-ad style but the weather has been odd and we felt the end of the semester was approaching too quickly to make things effective… so I thought we’d go with Plan B… “Raiding” the library would give us a chance to reach a large number of students from all backgrounds and concentrations. We figured that it wouldn’t be a stretch for library-goers to care to read a little sheet of paper resting on their table or cubicle-to-be since they already have their reading and thinking caps on. 

It felt great to get out there and hand out our bottles and handouts. We spoke with interested students—particularly a fellow student who hails from Ghana! 

Sadly the semester is coming to an end so we might not be able to finish all that we had aspired to do so at the start of this project, but I’d like to invest in this project in the long term so please look forward to more updates and project activities in the future! 

- Phim