Mobilising for events & campaigns

SMS can be extremely effective for mobilising in local and global campaigns. SMS messages can be sent once only or regularly during the lead-up to an event, using Frontline SMS or a bulk SMS service.

The Women of Uganda Network, together with Womensnet, South Africa and APC-Africa-Women (AAW), organised an SMS campaign during a global event, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. They sent out SMS messages each day for sixteen days, encouraging individuals and organisations to Speak Out, Stand Out, and Commit to preventing Violence against Women.

Using mobile phones to mobilise for an action campaign was successful in Nigeria where The International Center for Accelerated Development (ICAD) used mobile phones to bring people together for a rally during the the Global AIDS week of action campaign, which began in April 2008.

See the section on people's media for more information on how to use mobile phone cameras to capture images, sound and video safely and securely during actions and demonstrations.

Awareness building through SMS campaigns: In their Urgent Action appeals, Amnesty International-Netherlands used SMS to attract new members, to build awareness of the campaign against torture and to engage new people in responding quickly to cases of torture.

SMS campaign updates by EASSI Women's Day focussed on girl children in Kenya and East Africa after post-election violence. People who participated in this campaign received an SMS every day from 25th February 2008 to 14th March 2008 on their mobile phones.

Using SMS to mobilise response to abductions: this was effective among university students in the Philippines. KARAPATAN mobilised significant numbers of students from the University of Philippines and other universities through mass text messages demanding the release of two abducted students and calling for participation in protest actions.