Creativity and innovationBlogs, websites and games

Blogs

Anyone can set up a blog by selecting an online blog provider. Social media tools, such as Blogger and WordPress, are blog providers and they are an easy way to connect and share information with others when trying to raise awareness of a particular issue.

An online community is a group of people who interact with each other. They may be people who read your blog, or comment on what you have written. To get more people to read and interact with your blog, make sure that it is interesting. However, it may take time to build up an online community as there are so many other bloggers to compete with, eg WordPress has over 75 million users.

Websites

Websites can also be used to raise awareness. The most effective websites in raising awareness:

• have a clear message
• are easy to navigate
• have an attractive appearance
• are regularly updated
• display interesting content
• have good quality images
• have images that are relevant to the campaign being promoted

Real-life example one

Go Fund Me is a website that allows people to ask for donations to support specific causes. The Eden School Project is an example of a success story. In October 2014, Sam Hampson asked for donations to support a school building project in Uganda. Go Fund Me allowed him to promote the campaign by writing a short description of why he was asking for donations and what his target was. By March 2015, he had reached his target and received £5,000 of donations from people across the world. In the meantime, he has launched another campaign to raise £10,000 in order to buy extra educational resources and accommodation for the children who no longer have parents to care for them.

Real-life example two

WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) is an environmental charity in the UK that creates campaigns in order to protect the environment across the world. Their website shows how to raise awareness of different issues. They aim to inspire future generations to protect wildlife, rivers, lakes and seas. They are also working with the government and other stakeholders in order to tackle environmental issues as effectively as possible.

The WWF website provides information about what the campaigns are and how people can support their campaigns. For example, their website allows people to get involved in supporting campaigns. This can include adopting an animal or carrying out fundraising. The fees generated from adopting an animal or the proceeds from their fundraising missions are then used to protect the animals that are being campaigned about.

Games

Games can also create awareness of something in a fun way, especially if the target audience are younger children.

By using creativity and innovation, a traditional board game could be adapted to develop a child’s understanding of various concepts. For example, a number of board games could be adapted to help people learn the highway code. People could be asked questions on the code and if they answer correctly, they can move forward the number of spaces as shown on the dice.

A game like Top Trumps can be played in the traditional way or online and can be used to develop a child’s understanding of healthy foods, or to match types of exercise with the numbers of calories burnt.