Events

#EachOneReachOne: Combatting COVID-19 with collective community efforts

By
Tuesday, 1 September 2020

The power of a uniquely open service during a public health emergency is clear. As the world navigates through COVID-19, we realize that our work at Twitter has never been more critical and our service has never been more important in driving public conversation. Leveraging this power for good, we supported an initiative #EachOneReachOne that aimed at bringing communities together in this time of need.

As part of this, to signify the importance of each helping hand towards the community, we launched a special custom emoji to mark the campaign and invite collective participation from people on the service. The emoji represented a ‘comment icon’ on Twitter, depicting the importance of conversation, connectivity, warmth, empathy and compassion in times such as these. People inserted the emoji into their Tweets by using the following hashtags: #EachOneReachOne, #एकदूसरेकेलिए

Reflecting the power of Twitter through civic engagement, volunteerism, and collective efforts from the society, the #EachOneReachOne initiative was driven by five diverse pillars. The initiative garnered over 63.6 million trend impressions and 17.27 million tweet impressions in total.

Here are the five core pillars this work focuses on:

1. Supporting the fight against domestic violence with Breakthrough India.

As observed globally and in India, the COVID-19 lockdown period resulted in a demonstrable increase in domestic violence cases. According to a recent report by UN Women, 243 million girls and women aged 15-49 globally have been subjected to sexual and/or physical violence perpetrated by an intimate partner in the past 12 months. This can be attributed to domestic violence manifesting as a form of release by abusive partners who are presently bound at home.

To fight against this issue and spread awareness Breakthrough India, an organisation working to make violence and discrimination against women and girls unacceptable, ensured availability of credible information around domestic violence, with an aim to help survivors in seeking help against abuse.

The organisation held over four Tweet chats, focusing on various aspects of domestic violence, such as lockdown, the domestic violence law, culture of violence and the role of media, and a post pandemic world for women. Voices from the ground, of survivors and influencers were shared along with educational threads on the issue.

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2. Collecting donations to help economically impacted people with Give India

Navigating through the lockdown, hundreds and thousands of families have been deeply impacted with the loss of livelihoods and shelters and lack of food. Most of them are migrant workers who are uncertain about their future.

Give India, a crowdfunding platform in India used Twitter to encourage people to donate for those in need. They conducted Tweet storms, thus attracting the attention of volunteer donors and organisations, which helped in raising funds for those in need.

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3. Ensuring availability of credible information around COVID-19 with Observer Research Foundation.

As the global conversation continues around the spread of COVID-19, people across all parts of the country are anxious to find reliable information to protect themselves and their families from the pandemic. 

Observer Research Foundation took the initiative for surfacing and highlighting credible information on this emerging issue. ORF built an online real time tracker that surfaces updated statistics w.r.t COVID-19 cases in India. It continued to tweet timely updates and relevant  information pertaining to guidelines for hotspots in India, movement of persons during lockdown, etc. The organisation ran several infographics, videos and other content formats during the campaign.

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4. Helping people cope with mental health issues amid the lockdown with White Swan Foundation

While the lockdown helped in curbing the spread of the coronavirus to an extent, the prolonged period of staying confined within homes, and the added impact of striking a balance between work life and personal life, surfaced issues of anxiety, depression, and fear. To help people deal with these, White Swan Foundation, which is India’s first repository for offering help in the areas of mental health and well being, leveraged Twitter to promote good mental health for all.

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5. Breaking down the stigma around COVID-19 with Youth ki Awaaz

Public health emergencies during outbreak of communicable diseases can cause fear and anxiety leading to prejudices and stigma against people and communities. Such behaviour in the society can isolate people, discouraging them to seek medical help and adopt healthy practices.

Youth ki Awaaz, India's platform for young people to express themselves on critical issues, made efforts to dissociate the social stigma attached to the COVID-19 pandemic, by highlighting multiple relevant voices and conversations. From front line workers in health, to cultural, class and religious stigmatisation, Youth ki Awaaz along with partner NGOs enabled critical conversation around COVID-19. These were brought alive through Twitter Q&As, Tweet chats, video messages, blogs and Tweet threads. 

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Some more snapshots from the #EachOneReachOne conversations on Twitter:

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Through the #EachOneReachOne initiative, we reached out to the citizens to stand together in solidarity and to better cultivate understanding, equality, and opportunity in our communities. Thank you to our partners for this collaboration, expertise, and support.

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