CLIMBING MOUNT “KILIMANJA ROSE”
TIME IS FLEETING
1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime, directly and indirectly impacting countless lives in the process (Fondation du Cancer du sein du Québec, 2023). Sadly, we often wait for misfortune and disease to strike before making ourselves and loved ones a priority. Last semester among other hardships and challenges, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. As painful as this was, it was the wake up call I needed to start living my life more purposefully. I wanted to be closer to my family, better my overall relationships and influence myself and others to develop stronger physical and mental health (Khan et al. 2010).
Thankfully, my mother’s tumor was detected in the earliest stage of its formation.
It was a perfect opportunity to show gratitude towards the cause while fulfilling our promise of living in a more meaningful manner. By fundraising money for breast-cancer, our goal is to spread a message about the importance of cherishing every moment with loved ones, challenging ourselves to keep growing while living life to the fullest and most importantly, to minimize the impact of breast cancer (American Cancer Society, 2023)
But why choose to do a social media campaign?
The marketplace for people’s attention has never been more competitive, and big companies have risen to the top by injecting billions of dollars into new marketing innovations (Navarro, 2023). In the process, they’ve created an arms race. Last year alone, companies spent $16 billion getting influencers to sell things like Coca Cola, fitness apps, and new lines of credit (Dobson, 2022). As this marketing arms-race heats up, one kind of organization has been left behind: nonprofits, charities, and NGOs. They’ve been pushed out of the digital marketplace by rapid innovation they can’t afford to keep up with. Maybe that is why giving has declined more than 12% since 2020 with no signs of slowing down? (Canada Helps, 2022).
So, we decided to become influencers just like that?
While our goal is not to become long term influencers, we are modern activists using powerfull tools of influence in order to do good. In todays day and age, it's hard to get a message across without also being entertaining in some ways (Dobson, 2022). Thus, I have concluded that becoming ambassadors of the movement while leveraging the power of storytelling and social media trends was the fastest and most accesible path to a meaningful impact. Peoples increasingly limited attention span meant I also had to come up with an inspiring and entertaining idea that would facilitate content creation and interest people throughout our journey.
Ultimately, I challenged my mother and the rest of the family to Climb the tallest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro!
By choosing such a well-known landmark, suceeding at our challenge would be an impressive and inspiring feat especially taking into account that all climbers (except for myself) had never hiked and weren't physically active prior to the begining of our preparations. Furthermore, it was a great way to ensure the subsequent creation of fascinating and diverse content from the many different ecosystems we'll have the chance to encounter while on the mountain. Personally, it would also push my parents to take their health more seriously while enabling me to share my love of traveling with them. By emphasizing that this challenge is difficult yet realistic and pairing it with the social media marketing campaign and prior fundraising events with a goal of 25 000$, this is hopefully a strong and compelling message that will resonate with people and help the QC Breast Cancer Foundation in their efforts to fight for the well being of a growing number of victims (Fondation du Cancer du sein du Québec, 2023).
