WANTED!!! Good News Ambassadors

Over the past few weeks I’ve seen this article mentioned several times on Twitter. It talks about how NGOs and journalists choose to portray bad news about Africa as that is what is believed to guarantee to get the attention that will bring in funds.

In an online debate with @AKenyanGirl and @Terryannechebet I pointed out that this particular article had been retweeted (RT’d) by a large number of people and yet we struggle to get people to RT our news articles.

The reason for this seems to be that we are unlike many NGOs…we like to share good news stories. It is a conscious decision that Vision Africa has made. If people are bombarded with images of desperate looking children – those stereotypical shots of children in a few rags, flies on faces, big sad eyes – how can they relate to them? Surely the situation will seem overwhelming and it’s hard to believe that a small donation can actually make a difference.

We much prefer to show people the results of our work so they know the difference they can make. For those readers who have children surely it’s better for them to realise that in so many ways the children we work with are the same as their own children – they just need a little help to get them on the right path.

Rather than show a starving child, Vision Africa would rather show you a child with a plate full of food and tell you that by donating just 20ksh (or 20p) you could pay for a meal for a child.

Our debate continued to discuss how difficult it would be to convince mainstream media to start spreading good news. @AKenyanGirl referred to her interview with one of Kenya’s most famous and well-respected journalists, Jeff Koinange. When asked “What does the media out there think of Africa?” he replied ”Oh my goodness! Look, I’ve lived it for ten years; they still think it’s the dark continent. I call them the FOUR Ds. Death, disease, despair and destruction – that’s what they still think. They never think anything good can come out of Africa. We have to change that perception – it’s our obligation to change it.”

@Terryannechebet, business reporter for CitizenTV, suggested that if we can’t change the mainstream media we can start with social media. So this is exactly what we’d like to do.

We are calling for anyone who wants to help promote positive stories from Kenya to simply share our news and become a Good News Ambassador. If you see an article you like on our Facebook page or through Twitter or you like one of our videos on YouTube, please take 30 seconds to share it with your friends. It doesn’t cost anything and by spreading the word we can find more people who want to donate time, skills, money or items to support disadvantaged children who need a bit of a hand up in life.

Together we can spread good news and create brighter futures!