Social Media and Malaria

I am fortunate enough to be a part of a church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), that is actively engaged with the world around it.  They fund missionaries, train native citizens in their home country, assist with disaster relief, and advocate for justice, freedom and peace. 

One of the ways that the church is very visibly engaged right now is through the ELCA Malaria Campaign.  We are committed to raising $15 million by 2015 to fund the treatment and prevention of education and to train citizens to provide care and education to their fellow citizens.  A great cause committed to help end a disease, a preventable and treatable disease, that kills around 655,000 people each year, primarily striking down the already poor and vulnerable in this world. 

In the service of this cause, I was asked to be my synod’s Malaria coordinator, helping to lead a team that will set our synod’s fundraising goal and help educate and promote the cause throughout the synod.  To that end, I’ve been thinking about how social media might help promote the campaign and expand the conversation beyond just the few people who were at the synod assembly and physically signed up. 

Ending malaria is a massive task, and if I’ve learned anything from my recent research into social media and learning styles, it’s that we can arrive at a better answer to any question when we work together.  Whether the task is slaying a monster in World of Warcraft or slaying the monster of malaria, looking to others as a community of knower’s can only help to accomplish that task more quickly, more efficiently and more effectively.

While at synod assembly, I noticed that we had established a hashtag (#SESAssembly) to track tweets.  Looking to garner more interest in our campaign (which is just know kicking off!), I sent a short tweet encouraging people who were interested in getting more involved in our campaign to let me know. 

Now my twitter following is, admittedly, small.  However, my tweet was retweeted and within 30 minutes I had more followers and directed tweets from people asking me how they can help!  I plan on continuing to use social media as a way to work with our synod, and those outside the synod, to promote the campaign and to work truly as one body of Christ, brought together from afar through the Spirit and our internet connections, to exchange ideas, to encourage each other in our efforts in the physical world and, ultimately, to bring hope and life to those afflicted by malaria.  (I’ll note that I’m aware that it is not me or us doing any of this work, but it is through the Holy Spirit that we are enabled to produce any good works).

So I’m stepping into this with some fear, but encouraged to think that I’ve been shown a tool that can be used to participate in God’s mission.

Have you been involved in the ELCA Malaria campaign?  Are you interested in doing more? In educating your neighbors?  In fundraising to save lives?  Let me know!