Hi everyone! Welcome back to another IHL in the Bay blog, and if you’re new here, welcome! We are IHL in the Bay, a team that is part of the IHL Youth Action Campaign(YAC) in Red Cross. Our aim is to spread awareness about the International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and this year specifically, its relations to nuclear weapons. While there are several other exceptional teams within IHL YAC, today’s blog will delve into what sets us apart and makes our approach unique.
First of all, we make blogs! Unlike brief instagram posts that provide basic information on a topic, our blogs offer a comprehensive exploration of topics relating to IHL and nuclear weapons. They allow us to delve deeper into crucial and important issues, and provide our audience with a more thorough discussion on IHL. We also use blogs to talk about our lives, and the behind-the-scenes work we put into IHL. This is something that makes our team unique, as we use this platform to not only spread awareness on IHL, but also on advocacy as a whole.
Another aspect of our team that makes us stand out is how we utilize our instagram. We maintain an active presence on the platform, posting three days a week with themed prompts such as “Shocking fact Saturday” and “World News Wednesday”. These prompts engage our followers and create a schedule for us to provide new information regarding IHL. We also use instagram to promote our blog content, ensuring that a wider audience will reach our blogs. Whenever a new blog is published, we create a dedicated post about it, drawing in anyone who may be interested in it. In addition to regular posts, we utilized instagram stories by making trivia questions related to our most recent posts. The trivia questions are part of an instagram competition we created, in which the top 3 people who answer the most trivia questions correctly can get a prize. This competition not only incentivizes engagement, but also ensures that people are reading and comprehending the information.
The third aspect of our campaign that makes us unique is the different types of events we host every month. Every month, our team puts in time and effort to develop entertaining and engaging events that will also provide our participants with information on IHL and Red Cross. So far this year, we’ve held various types of events from online to even in-person events. Our first event was an escape room incorporating Oppenheimer, followed by an asynchronous event that connected IHL to popular movies as well as historical events that have violated the laws. Another event we held was IHL x bay area club fest, where we collaborated with a variety of school clubs in the bay area, raising awareness on the importance of IHL with fun quizzes. The event I find the most memorable out of all the events we held was our offline event, where our advocates visited parks to educate people on IHL, and afterward, we would make them apply their knowledge to answer questions! I found this to be one of our most successful ones as our participants were able to engage directly with us and ask questions for clarification on the spot.
Lastly, our team’s marketing strategies are what set us apart from other teams. Because all of our efforts to raise awareness on IHL become futile if not seen by anyone, our team works hard to increase the number of our participants. One creative marketing strategy we utilize are instagram reels. Using reels was highly effective in advertising our events and blogs, especially in reaching target audiences—the teenagers. Since our team’s main target audience are the teenagers and high schoolers, we have also put up flyers around schools as well as using service hours as an incentive.
Overall, our team enjoys being involved the IHL YAC and with our unique approach to advocacy, we are able to spread awareness about IHL and make an impact on our community!
By IHL in the Bay!
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