image credit: Vangelis Thomaidis
Recently, one of the staff at the Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC) was surprised to discover the possibility of creating change with a few simple tools. A delegation she met with from Egypt, who talked about their desire to bring politics in their country back into the hands of the people, inspired her to believe that making change was possible with what’s at hand.
Last week, I had the privilege of spending a few hours with a delegation from Egypt—four young men who were involved in the April 6th revolution and continue to work for democracy in Egypt. They were at the end of a three week tour of the U.S. focused on the role of social media in politics and elections.They were frankly surprised that here, in the country that gave birth to Facebook, Twitter and Google, we not doing more with social media to advance our democracy. Their visit with IISC was to focus on some of the social technology that fuels social change work. Still, I thought to myself, “No pressure!”
Original article posted on April 2, 2012 for Interaction Institute for Social Change and written by Cynthia Silva Parker.