Celebrating our Community Champions

In its third term, the World Pulse Community Champion program grew to include 18 Champions who collectively led six groups and drove seven action campaigns.

From expanding the groups they led to personalizing interactions with community members, from promoting actions such as Victoria Vorosciuc’s #HerEarth Photo Challenge to sharing their own stories and trainings, these Champions have creatively enhanced World Pulse’s online community.

World Pulse extends its heartfelt gratitude to the Community Champions who have led groups between February and August 2016. Five of these Champions have renewed their commitment beyond the six-month term and will continue their roles during next few months.

“Making the commitment to serve as a Community Champion gave me the opportunity to work more closely with other leaders and the World Pulse Team and to strengthen ties with so many other members of this important group,” says Tamarack (Tam) Verrall, a continuing Community Champion with the Gender-Based Violence Group.

Each Champion found a niche within the role; while some focused on building personal connections, others collected resources and invented new initiatives.

Following the #HerEarth Photo Challenge, Victoria recruited a panel of photographers, environmentalists, and World Pulse members, including fellow Environment Group Community Champion, Nusrat Ara. The panelists provided feedback on the photo submissions and decided which photographers to highlight. All 227 photos submissions are captured in a YouTube video clip.

Led by Soumya Vilekar, Leadership Group Champions launched the “I Am a Leader” action campaign with the help of mentor James Wilson. More than 90 responses came in through World Pulse and outside contributors. Eight of these contributors attended a leadership workshop facilitated by James and supported by Soumya. In addition, Leadership Champions kicked off the Leader of the Month designation, writing about honorees in monthly articles that were promoted on Facebook and received tens of thousands of likes!

Marie-Claire Kuja, a Community Champion for the new Sub-Saharan Africa Group, and her fellow Champions helped commemorate Menstrual Hygiene Day by launching the “My First Period” campaign. The campaign ties in well to Marie-Claire’s One Million Pads for Progress pad drive.

Some of the Champions overcame barriers of limited Internet access and time to share their work and participate in their groups. Though she couldn’t be reached for comment due to communication difficulties in her region, Nusrat tackled these challenges throughout her six-month term, managing to have one of the highest levels of Community Champion activity and making connections with countless other community members.

Tam notes that despite distance, time zone differences and personal busy schedules, it was memorable to be in direct contact with other Community Champions working toward shared goals.

“I am proud of our collective caring for this 6-month period of growth for the group, and of our commitment to trying to figure out ways to keep momentum growing, given the gravity and enormity of what needs changing [in the world],” Tam says.