After a recent trip to Honduras with the ONE Research Foundation, an advocacy and campaigning organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, actors America Ferrera and Alexis Bledel spoke about women, children, social media advocacy and ending poverty at the 2012 Social Good Summit on Monday.
Molly Kinder, director for agriculture and Europe policy at ONE, and Claire Diaz-Ortiz, who leads social innovation at Twitter, joined them in a panel moderated by Mashable's Zoe Fox.
Before the panel, they showed a short but moving documentary about the women and girls they met in Honduras, working to improve their lives and those of their families. While there, they learned about strengthening the position of women in the community in order to bolster its infrastructure.
"They're not looking for handouts or for charity," Ferrera said of people in developing nations like Honduras. "They're looking for tools and they're looking for ways that they can educate their children, keep their children healthy and keep their families together."
The four panelists recently conducted a Twitter chat to share their experiences, communicating with people who were interested in the message. They discussed education as the backbone for lifting a nation out of poverty, but those looking to help can also educate themselves in order to promote advocacy.
"If you want to get educated, it's so much easier to get educated now. It's so much easier to get involved and to find an organization or a group that is working on behalf of the things that you care about," Ferrera said.
Diaz-Ortiz added that the phrase "advocacy starts at home" can take on further meaning in the age of digital media. "It's about doing what you can from where you are," she said. This includes creating calls to action on Twitter or Facebook that distill your message efficiently. And in the developing communities themselves, social media and digital technology can form networks of support and inspiration, especially for young people.
"They know the situation, they know their problems, they know the solutions, they have the desire and the will to communicate," Ferrera said. "What they might need for a hand up [is] a little bit more instruction, a little bit more education, one more little technological resource that will help them connect a little better to the young people that they're already trying to connect to. Matching up the people in this room with the kids trying to change their own situation, is, I think, what this entire conference is about."
How do you think social media can help women and children in developing nations? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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Read more of Mashable's coverage of the 2012 Social Good Summit:
Day One:
- Hillary Clinton Opens the Social Good Summit [VIDEO]
- How the U.S. Chief Technology Officer Is Making Data Awesome
- Can Mobile Phones Help Fight Pediatric AIDS?
- How Is Social Media Changing Diplomacy?
- Peter Gabriel Makes Case For Internet Freedom
- ITU Secretary-General: OK to Make Profit When Helping Developing Nations
- 8-Year-Old YouTube Sensation Performs at Social Good Summit
- Social Good Summit Day 1: Highlights and Pics
Day Two:
- ShoutAbout Aims to Inspire Social Action Based on News Stories
- Tim Pool, Guerrilla Journalist of the Digital Age [VIDEO]
- U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice: Twitter Crucial to Her Mission
- How Social Media Is Empowering Women in Haiti
- How to Use Mobile Devices to Solve Global Problems
- How Forest Whitaker Is Using Technology to Spread Peace
- Social Good Summit Day 2: Highlights and Pics
Day Three:
- Napolitano: Congress 'Got Stuck' on Cybersecurity
- U.N. Foundation Challenges the World to Take Action
- Nick Kristof Takes Social Good Gaming to the Next Level
- Why Tech and New Media Can Help End Modern Slavery
- UNICEF Launches Online Campaign to Reduce Child Mortality Rates
- What It Means to Be an Advocate in the Digital Age
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