Blog Action Day 2008 – Tweeting Out Poverty

As October 15th rolls around, it’s hard to be out and about on the internet and not run into topics relating to Blog Action Day’s second annual event. Last year’s topic focused on The Environment… this year – Poverty.

Today thousands of bloggers will unite to discuss a single issue – poverty. We aim to raise awareness, initiate action and to shake the web!

An Overwhelming Issue

I knew that I wanted to participate in Blog Action Day again this year, but I admit I wasn’t quite sure how I could best contribute.

Poverty – both here in the United States as well as worldwide – is such a big issue. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a bigger surge of this in the US with the current economic crisis. Wordwide the problem is staggering.

According to Wikipedia, in 2005 there were over 100 million homeless people worldwide. 100 MILLION! In the United States alone in 2007 the number was just over 670 thousand homeless. I’m sure the numbers are even higher as we speak.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

As I struggled with what to write for my own post – I ran across a post from Michael Martin (@problogdesign on Twitter) of Pro Blog Design.

Of all the articles I’ve read today, I was particularly moved by this one:

• Poverty in Pictures
  

A picture truly is worth a thousand words. One thing to speak of poverty but to actually visualize it – especially in poor innocent children – brings the thought to a whole other level.

The photos Michael features from Flickr pull at your heartstrings, and are actually the reason I felt the need to participate this year.

No Gesture Is Too Small

A designer himself, Michael seemed to be having the same problem I did… how to portray the topic in a meaningful way. As he expresses:

There are far better writers than me out there
who will write better posts than I could.
But this is a design blog. And design talks.

These are my sentiments exactly. I wanted to honor the day, but almost didn’t participate because I didn’t feel that what I could write on the topic would do the issue any true justice.

Of course, this line of thinking couldn’t be any further from the truth. ANY acknowledgement of the huge issue of poverty – both here in the US and throughout the world – helps raise awareness.

If one person comes across this post and becomes more aware of the problem, donates to the cause, writes their own post, etc. well that in itself will help, even if just a little.

Kind of like “pass it on” or “pay it forward” – each action that we take, as small as it may be, will help.

Tweeting Out Poverty

Without a true post of my own, I wanted to show how powerful social media can be. On the Blog Action Day web site, at this very moment there have been well over 12,000 web sites to break their normal posting schedule to write about Poverty.

I’m one of many people addicted to Twitter and you can’t help but notice the outpouring of posts referencing Blog Action Day or #BAD08.

Blog Action Day Link Love via Twitter

I’d like to share with you a few of the great posts written by my own Twitter friends. Please take some time to read the posts, leave your comments and if you are feeling inspired maybe even publish a post of your own!

Of course, I have to say thank you to everyone below for participating in my little social media experiment!

• Blog Action Day - @blogactionday
  Blog Action Day (official web site)
• Cory O’Brien - @CoryOBrien
  It’s Blog Action Day: Poverty
• Doug Cloud - @dcloud
  Poverty of the Heart
• Janet Fouts - @jfouts
  Take Action Against Poverty
• Jennae Petersen - @greenyourdecor
  Blog Action Day – Fight Poverty with Your Wallet
• Katja Presnal - @KatjaPresnal
  One Voice One Dollar – Fight Against Poverty
• Kim Woodbridge - @kwbridge
  Support Train for Humanity – Blog Action Day 08 – Poverty
• Michael Martine - @remarkablogger
  Blog Action Day: Fight Poverty by Registering for the Blog Traffic Seminar and I’ll Donate up to $800
• Money Matters - @moneymatters
  Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty

Keep Sharing The Love

If you’ve participated in Blog Action Day 2008, I hope you’ll share in the Link Love by linking to your own post in the comments below.

Even better yet – if there was an article you read or photo you saw today that particularly moved you, please share with everyone below.

You can also help spread the love by participating in social bookmarking through sites like Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. – sharing social votes for the articles you’ve read today on Poverty make it that much more likely for that post to be read by someone else.

So please share the love and support the cause – together we can make a mark on Poverty.

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

About the Author

Selene M. Bowlby is a web designer and front-end web developer with over ten years of professional experience in the design industry. As the owner of iDesign Studios she specializes in creating custom web sites for other businesses. more »

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