How celebs are giving aid workers a voice
August 18, 2015
Lang Lang's 272,000 followers on Twitter could be forgiven for assuming he was yet another celebrity to have his Twitter account hacked, when his feed took a drastic change of tone last week.
The star pianist, however, had willingly handed over his Twitter account to Dr. Karch, a volunteer for International Medical Corps, who was detailing his on-the-ground experience in Nepal following the devastating April earthquake for World Humanitarian Day.
The annual commemoration day on August 19 - coordinated by the United Nations - celebrates the dedicated work of the thousands of aid workers around the globe, and pays tribute to the many that have lost their lives in the line of duty. It also endeavors to share incredible stories of survival.
Brazilian football star Ricardo Kaká also donated his Twitter account for a day in the lead-up to August 19, under the hashtag #ShareHumanity.
Nepalese mountaineer Nuri Sherpa shared his story with Kaká's 23.4 million followers, namely his part in the effort to get supplies to devastated remote villages in the wake of the Nepalese earthquake.
World Humanitarian Day's organizers are also encouraging everyday Twitters users to hand over their feeds for a day and share in stories of aid workers, and as of today (18.08.2015) over 10,000 social media accounts across Facebook and Twitter have pledged to take part - amassing over 71,000 posts to date.
Social media has of course successfully been utilized for a number of global awareness campaigns, perhaps most notably the Ice Bucket Challenge - aiming to raise money for ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, research - which went viral in 2014 and attracted the participation of the likes of Stephen Hawking, Justin Bieber, Russell Brand and Barack Obama.
The campaign amassed well over two million unique tagged videos and has raised more than $100 million (90 million euros) for the ALS Association since 2013.
World Humanitarian Day was designated by the UN Security Council in 2008 to commemorate a deadly terrorist attack on the UN headquarters in Bagdad on August 19, 2003, in which 22 people were killed.