Freeze for a cause

Freeze for a cause

So what’s all the Ice about?

The Ice bucket Challenge which is also called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge ,Is a freezey activity were it contains dumping icy water over your head, it helps to create awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis also known as ALS or the Lou Gehrig`s Disease. How to join into this Icy Experience you ask? You will first be nominated by friends/enemy just kidding. You will have 24 hours to take part in this cold experience and take video footage of yourself. After you have accepted this challenge you will be thrown by a bucket of brain freezing water over your head, after you have been thrown with water you can nominate a minimum of three people to join into this South Pole experience. It`s the participants own choice to donate or to simply do it for awareness.

How Social Media made it a breeze for the Ice bucket Challenge Campaign:

Former springbok Captain Joost Van der Westhuizen

The ice bucket challenge was a big hit on the social media platform all over the world, including South Africa. The ice bucket challenge brought a lot of people together and gave a new meaning to the cause from which the campaign started, for example:

Famous people did it to contribute by funding/donating towards the different causes in South Africa:

In South Africa allot of celebrity`s took this chance at doing something for a cause by using Social media as their platform to communicate to their fans. Celebrity`s such as Jeannie D ,Maps Maponyane,Katlego Maboe and Poppy Ntshongwe took the opportunity to do the ALS ice bucket challenge. Former Springbok Captain Joost van der Westhuizen which has the moto neuron disease also did the ALS ice bucket challenge.
 

Normal people did it for awareness:



A lot of the public joined into the Ice Bucket Challenge

Allot of people even businesses in South Africa did the ALS ice Bucket Challenge by using YouTube as their source of communication, some people took the opportunity and donated money to the different causes . Were other people did it simply for awareness. So that the message can come out about what the Ice Bucket challenge Campaign is all about ,and to encourage more people to do the challenge and to donate towards different causes around South Africa.

Different platforms which were used for the Ice Bucket Challenge:

The Ice Bucket Challenge contributed to using many kinds of Social Media platforms. The platforms which were used were Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. These are the biggest social media platforms currently in the country and globally and all of these platforms were used for this campaign, that`s why this cause was successful. Therefor I believe social media played a huge role in the success of the campaign and the organisations whom are being funded by the donations.

The Viral Virus

The Viral Virus

 

What is Ebola?

Ebola is an infectionous disease, you catch this disease when you have contact with body fluids and fruit bats. The virus symptoms starts 2 days up to 3 weeks after having contact with something that contains the virus. Your symptoms first starts with fever, sore throat and pain in your muscles. After a while vomiting, diarrhoea and a rash will appear. After that your liver and kidneys won`t function properly and you will start bleeding internally or externally. The average percentage of people contracting or dying of this virus is 50%. Scary to know. Read more about the virus on Ebola.

 

How does social media play a role with Ebola?

Social media played one of the most powerful roles in the country and in the world these last few months because of how it informed and educated us about the Ebola outbreak. Social media was powerful because:

It informed us fast and efficient:

If it was not for social media, we would only be informed few days later about the Ebola outbreak which was taking place in West Africa, Sierra Leone and Guinea. And how fast the virus is spreading all over the countries.

It informs us about what Ebola is and what measures should be taken:

Social media kept us up to date about what Ebola is and how to prevent it and what safety measures should be taken, to make sure we also do not get infected.

It keeps us up to date about the Ebola status:

All news channels kept us up to date about how many people have passed away at the hand of this deadly virus. They informed us about how far the virus has spread and which countries had infected patients. They also gave the status about how many doctors and nurses were infected and how many of the public were infected.

Keeps us up to date about what countries doctors, nurses helped and what measures they already have taken with the already infected people.

Without Social media for example on YouTube we would not be able to know if the medical staff do take any precautions as to what steps are they now going to take to decrease the risk of more people going to be affected by the Ebola virus. The social media also informed us about what steps countries are going to take to ensure that no Ebola infected people enter the country\countries whom is not infected with the Ebola virus.