Just a few months ago Arun Daniel Yellamaty, founder of the NGO Youngistaan received a Manthan award for contributing towards digital empowerment through their social media presence, the NGO has now added another feather to its cap — it won at the recent South Asia Awards in the Community Mobilisation category for its use of ‘Social Media for Empowerment’.
“Our hard work paid rich dividends. Interacting with the multi-faceted jury itself was quite an experience. We had to compete with firms across 11 South-Asian countries,” says Arun, obviously overjoyed. He states that the statistics effectively prove the work they have done. “Name the social media platform and we’re there on it, from Vimeo, Quora, Facebook and Twitter to many others. We have been among the only NGOs in the country to have registered consistent social media activity. Our NGO is totally volunteer-driven, it’s only because of social media presence that our volunteer strength has grown from time to time,” says the former journalist turned social worker.
The reason behind their vigorous social media activity is the huge number of programmes that they focus on. Aminimum of ten posts per day are put up across multiple platforms, with a focus on food-donation, rescue activities, mentoring children as part of education programmes as well as gender sensitisation. “We use a lot of infographs images, videos and hash tags to reach people. Most of our volunteers are youngsters who drive our activities,” shares Arun.
The numbers do speak of their social media reach even sans avid or paid promotional initiatives; most of their posts have a reach to about 5000 people on several sites. “Like most NGOs, social media is also an integral tool for us to mobilise funds and boost our activities. We team up with a lot of crowd-sourcing platforms ranging from Milaap, Ketto and others to ring in consistent contributions.” Over the years, managing social media has become simpler for Arun, given a lot of apps facilitate quick and easy updates.
Arun admits the onus is on them now to use their recognition to ensure wider change. “Our digital presence is very significant in our aim to reach people from different cities. I thank my volunteers and donors for their committed efforts for running the show. I hope one day, we’ll have our centres in each city of the country,” hopes Arun.
