Senior Capstone: Digital Advocacy Campaigns
My senior capstone was Digital Advocacy Campaigns. In this class, we were charged with creating a digital campaign for a worthy cause. My partner and I chose to create a campaign called EmpowHER, which both advocates and raises money for young girls in Ethiopia to go to school. Ethiopia has a huge gender gap in terms of education available in the country. In fact, 82% of girls will never know how to read. Our campaign uses both visual and verbal rhetoric to appeal to our target audience, Virginia Tech Panhellenic (sorority) women. Our campaign used Wix to build a website, Instagram, and there's an example plan of what a traditional event would look like to raise awareness.
Visit EmpowHER website
While visiting the EmpowHER website, you might notice that it isn't your average campaign website. One of the major things I learned throughout my studies is that people feel more compelled to hear your argument if they feel that it is relatable and easy to understand. For that reason, I thought that it would be cool if our website wasn't just a few pages with facts. Instead, our website takes you through a story of a young Ethiopian girl in a "choose your own adventure" format. Throughout the journey you understand why education is so important and how you can make a difference. The design of EmpowHER is unique, easy to understand, and makes the user want to stay and explore.
Visit EmpowHER Instagram
The EmpowHER instagram account is an example of what EmpowHER would post should this campaign become a reality. Some of the posts tell stories of Ethiopian girls, some have inspirational messages, and some are graphics I created that give statistics to make the understanding concrete.