Stand Up and Take Action
Weekly Challenge #4: Hold a “Stand Up and Take Action” Event
Details: 20,000 points to the school with the best “Stand Up and Take Action” event October 17th- 19th.
Deadline: Sunday, October 19th, 2008
Soon, millions and millions of people around the world will be getting on their feet at the same time to “Stand Up and Take Action” against global poverty and for the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Last year, the event set a Guinness World Record, with 43.7 million people from 127 countries standing up. The goal is to top that number this year, mobilizing 1% of the world’s population, or 67 million people.
67 million pairs of legs standing would be impressive, but a more sobering number is 1.3 billion. That’s the number of people worldwide currently living on less than $1 a day.
We’re standing up for the impoverished, and the UN-led action plan for cutting poverty in half by 2015. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set eight concrete objectives for enhancing quality of life around the world by preventing diseases, providing education, ending hunger, creating economic opportunities and protecting the environment, and we need to make sure our leaders live up to their MDG promises.
So what should your team do to Stand Up and Take Action against global poverty and for the MDGs?
Last year, Rutgers won this challenge with a 3-day stake-out on their main campus thoroughfare. They held fundraisers, netted petition signatures, featured a local band and got media attention. The College of Charleston did a simulated night of poverty, camping (with permission) on a central campus lawn with cardboard boxes, sheets and little else. The University of Florida did a congressional letter-writing campaign. Many schools held tabling events or drew other ideas from our list of actions. And we’ll be posting some big point-getting event ideas here on the OCC blog later in the week, so stay tuned for those.
How do you organize your school’s “Stand Up and Take Action” event?
1) Meet. Get together with other OCC members at your school to decide what you’re going to do and plan your event. If your school doesn’t have a team or a leader yet, consider signing up as leader at least temporarily and posting a first meeting announcement on your school’s message boards, Facebook, etc. You can get extra points for holding your first meeting!
2) Create your event using our handy online event tool, which lets you control all aspects including emailing those who sign up to attend. You can also download flyers and graphics to use in publicizing your event.
3) Advertise. Be sure to hit your school’s message boards, Facebook and Myspace pages, and regular website, and make in-class announcements and hand out flyers — anything to drive up attendance!
4) Hold your event. This is the fun part!
5) Report. Be sure to use our challenge reporting tool to send us your event description and results, plus any media reports, pictures or videos of the event.
You’ve got two weeks, but you should start organizing ASAP so you’ll have enough time to get the word out about your event. Meanwhile, keep checking in to the OCC blog for more event ideas and news, and watch the video below for a report on last year’s “Stand up and Take Action” events.
