Charity and New Media

Recently I attended a presentation where SACA the charity organisation that organises the yearly Birmingham to London Cycle ride (UK) gave a £25,000 cheque to the charity – Children with Leukaemia (please see picture below). Fauja Singh the world’s fastest and oldest marathon runner and Christopher Biggins – winner of the ‘I’m a Celebrity get me out of here’ reality tv programme both kindly gave up their time to receive the cheque on behalf of the charity.

Last Wednesday Knowledge Hemispheres recently edited the video for Bal Rashmi Children’s orphanage (see below).
I wondered if the the power of Web 2.0 and New Media tools is being used to help spread a message of hope.

The power of YouTube, Ning and Facebook have the potential to spread knowledge and also unite people around a common cause.

For example:

• Short field based documentaries
• Community based volunteer sites
• Inserting into Podcasts (video and audio) advertisements to help raise funds
• Announcements on areas of need and development
• ‘Live’ updates from those taking part in Sponsored events
• Journalists logging key, ‘on the ground’ facts
• Corporate charity activities – if involved – e.g: Corporate podcasts with updates
• Linking schools and initiatives together through Youtube type channels / Video sharing sites

I recently met an exBBC producer who said that the good thing about new media was that no longer are enormous transporters required to carry audio and video equipment to produce shows. He was right but only for mobile and web-content. However, good editing tools and associated skills can help in developing engaging content.

There must be an opportunity here for new media to usher in an era of reporting with hope for humanity in mind.

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