Online volunteers use the Web for a good cause

Volunteers in the Kingdom have been using social media platforms to spread the word and reach the largest possible audience for a good cause.
The Young Initiative Group (YIG) is a Jeddah-based volunteer group that managed to gather a large number of volunteers especially for their Ramadan project. “Through Facebook, BlackBerry Messenger and word of mouth, young volunteers keep pouring in to participate,” said Maha Taher, co-founder of YIG. “I have never met such dedicated, giving, generous and pure people in my life. Each one’s spirit inspired and motivated us all. With each person’s added value we were able to gather donations resulting in distributing 300 meals a day.”
Campaigns have a higher success rate when they are published on a social media platform. “I was very happy to see many people excited to participate in my secondhand books campaign. I asked them to donate their old books for a school in a Saudi village,” said Maysoon Abduljabbar, founder of the book campaign. “I received so many books that it filled my house with boxes just to help the unfortunate school library. I know how powerful Twitter is and this is why I chose to tweet about my campaign instead of distributing flyers the old fashioned way,” she added.
Anything is possible when you can reach hundreds of people with a click of a button, said Mohammed Khair, Instagram subscriber. “I posted a photo of a damaged house and wrote a caption as a message to people to help those people living in a poor neighborhood in South Jeddah,” he said. “Many people started contacting me and offered me to send furniture, clothing and food to those people. I believe people had to see with their own eyes. This is why I chose Instagram to spread the word,” he added.