Doctors of the World shares map of positive Tweets about European refugee crisis
Howard Lake | 9 September 2015 | News
Humanitarian aid charity Doctors of the World has published a digital map of Europe showing a real-time visualisation of the the positive things being Tweeted by the UK general public about refugees and migrants.
The charity aims to capture the good feeling around refugees and migrants in the UK, showing all Tweets in real-time, and plotting them along the routes where thousands risk their lives every day for a better life. Given the importance for donors of seeing other people giving, and the importance of seeing impact, the map could even inspire others to donate to help the charity’s work with refugees. The map includes a prominent DONATE button.
The positive tweets appear along a series of routes across Europe highlighted by red hearts.
The charity is the only medical aid organisation working on the ground withe migrants in Calais. It also has more than 350 programmes in more than 80 countries and is meeting the medical needs of refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, and through its clinics in nine European countries, including Greece, France, Germany and the UK.
How was the map built?
Doctors of the World worked with digital agency Impero to create the #refugeeswelcome map.
It works by using the Twitter streaming API to capture tweets as they happen, pushing new tweets into the browser using WebSockets (with the help of socket.io and node.js). A variety of keywords and hashtags are used to identify relevant tweets and sentiment tracking to ensure that those selected are positive.
Leigh Daynes, executive director, Doctors of the World UK explained:
“We used to get a deluge of negative comments whenever we spoke about our work helping refugees in Calais and the Mediterranean but recently we’ve been inundated with messages of support, offers of practical help and cash donations.
“A noticeable shift in attitudes came after the shocking image of drowned Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi was published.
“We wanted a way to visualise this outpouring of empathy and to do this we worked with Impero to create this real-time visualisation of public sentiment. It can be quite hypnotic.”Advertisement
Michael Scantlebury, creative director and founder of Impero said:
“We wanted our contribution to help drive change – and by visualising the very real issues faced by refugees in combination with positive stories of support throughout Europe, the map offers an accessible way for Britons to understand the current crisis.
“Partnering our creative and technical teams with the expertise of Doctors of the World has produced an awareness tool that we believe can have real impact.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.