Wolfgang Drundinger

Case Study: Getting their attention

For TakingitGlobal, I am coordinating youth action ins Western Europe on MDGs. We are trying to make young people care about MDGs and be involved in their implementation. We are trying to set up a network, not only for a year but for a longer time, to bring people together.

So, my job is to solicit and spread these activities in order to build a network (including soliciting articles about the experiences, ideas and thoughts of young people about MDGs, best-practice-reports etc.), and to initiate new activities. How is my strategy? It's about many small local projects. E.g., I asked professors at universities to use 1st of July (global Action Day for MDGs) to have a lecture about MDGs, or here in the university of Regensburg where I study, we will cover the "Bowl" (university's symbol) with a white band (worldwide sign to show solidarity with MDGs). And I have many presentations at different groups, e.g. curch youth groups. I also use the YOIS network (www.yois.org) to spread information about MDGs and to support TIG activities (as for instance the LiveChat about MDGs some weeks ago). We also have an OpenForum on MDGs at a big Festival in Berlin where many young activists will be and we want them to learn more about MDGs.

We try to organise many small events for two main reasons:

1) Everyone is working with very low capacity (time, people, money), so big events are often not able to be run.

2) if you have only one big event, you don't often get new people involved (always the same guys attend those events), and you have to put all your capacities in one single event; with many local projects, you can better involve people locally and you have permanently new actions to reach people.

Stunts like the bowl covered with the whiteband are ways of getting people’s attention so that you can then talk to them about the MDGs, poverty in the world and getting something happening. Then the open forum at the festival in Berlin allows young people to connect face to face, provides them with knowledge and creates motivation for new action.

Working in partnerships across broad networks and at a distance is difficult and in my experience is that you need also personal meetings and calls, not only email, to really make sure people to have a feeling of obligation to the network.