Famine: The Real "F Word"

The famine in Somalia has killed 30,000 children in just 3 months, making it the deadliest food crisis the world has seen in 20 years.

The famine in Somalia has killed 30,000 children in just 3 months, making it the deadliest food crisis the world has seen in 20 years. To help bring awareness to this issue, One.Org has created a film called “The F Word: Famine is the real obscenity.” This star studded production brought together celebrities, influencers, and politicians to shine a light on the tragedy unfolding.

Rather than asking for your money, One.Org is asking for your voice by encouraging people to sign a petition calling on world leaders to invest in proven solutions to end famine: early warning systems, irrigation, drought resistant seeds, peace, and security.

Often times issues such as this leave Americans feeling helpless, wondering what they could possibly do to remedy such a foreign situation. That feeling has compelled AOL and Huffington Post to partner with One.Org to spread the message about this crisis and offer meaningful solutions that our users can engage with.

When the campaign launched on 10/4, AOL donated its mail sign-in page where users could watch the “The F Word” video and click to sign One.Org’s petition. On the same day, Bono (co-founder of One.Org) blogged about the famine crisis on Huffington Post Impact, soliciting 986 comments and over 3,000 social media shares. Clearly this is an issue people care about, because in that one day One.Org had 98,000 views of their video and 108,000 petition sign-ups!

The campaign received heightened attention yesterday, which marked World Food Day 2011. In honor of this day, AOL Mail ran another mail sign-in page for One.Org which enabled users to again watch the video and sign the petition. The creative utilized a compelling background image of an empty refrigerator, a clear reminder of the 12 million people that are currently without food in Africa.

One.Org is currently 60% of the way to their goal of 500,000 petition signs. If you would like to get involved, please visit One.Org and take two minutes of your time to watch the “The F Word” video and sign the petition. Sometimes two minutes is all you need to make a change.

Keywords: Cause Marketing