Sunday 29 March 2009

Awareness

What is the point of awareness campaigns? In certain cases (environmental sustainability, i.e. getting people to unplug stuff they aren't using) I can see it working. But in almost all other cases I'm wondering what the point is? Generally, the people who attend awareness events aren't the ones who would be going to perpetuate said global crisis (i.e. child sexual slavery, genocide, etc).

Can someone walk me through this? What's the purpose?? I'm sure there must be one, I just don't know what it is.

2 comments:

  1. it's educational. i remember going to my first gender inequality awareness event. and that openned my eyes to something i didn't know about before. it led to changed behavior. there was no big change at the moment, but overtime, my thinking has changed. so, i see how awareness campaigns might lack the immediate changes to a larger situation. but i think education is the first, slow step in righting a problem.

    do you buy that?

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  2. How coincidental that you've been pondering this! I've been musing over the same thing lately. Of course being on campus I'm always surrounded by awareness campaigns. My head spins at the sight of seemingly endless problems that are either my fault or beg my full attention. Perhaps I'm overly critical, but I've been noticing that typically those who head awareness campaigns do little to assist in getting their hands directly involved in issues that beg more than just their attention, but their very lives. I do "buy" that education is an important step, but education without meaningful action perpetuates a feeling of uselessness and robs us of kingdom work.

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