Social Change Winners: Other Media
First Place:
Virtual Tour of Auschwitz, a collaboration between Auschwitz Museum and Remember-org
Grovetown, Georgia
Submission: Virtual Tour of Auschwitz, a collaboration between Auschwitz Museum and Remember-org
Remember.org’s mission is to preserve the stories of holocaust survivors while driving social change through learning materials provided for free to classrooms to ensure that events like the holocaust never happen again. The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz is a 360° tour of the Auschwitz camp and museum to designed for people who are otherwise not able to visit the site in person. The creation of the Tour brought together scores of people from around the world to virtually work together on a project that they felt so passionately about. In addition, the Tour has enabled millions of students to virtually visit and interact with the museum since 2005, and not only provides them with a new and interesting learning platform, but also inspires them to apply the lessons learned to fight injustice in their own lives.
Project Gallery Page
Organization's Website
Runners Up
The Powerhouse Kids
Durango, Colorado
Submission: The Powerhouse Kids
The Powerhouse Kids is a live-action webisode series designed to engage audiences in the mission to open an interactive science center for all ages in a historic power plant on the banks of the Animas River in Durango, Colorado. The webisode premise: The Durango Discovery Museum at the Powerhouse is supposed to be the coolest interactive science center ever. But will it ever open? Five intrepid kids grow impatient with the grownups’ slow progress, so they take matters into their own hands. With the help of a mysterious voice from the past (played by NPR’s infamous Dr. Science), the Kids discover their special powers and set out to make their vision for the Powerhouse "really real." High jinks ensue. It’s a kid show. It's viral fundraising for a worthy social sector cause. It's a history lesson with a shocking twist.
Project Gallery Page
Organization's Website
Child Crisis Center's New Website
Mesa, California
Submission: Child Crisis Center's New Website
The Child Crisis Center is committed to preventing and treating child abuse and neglect. As the economy began to take a turn for the worse, more families and children found themselves in need of the Child Crisis Center’s emergency shelter, adoption and foster care services and parenting classes and support groups. Without an advertising budget, the Child Crisis Center (the Center) had to both increase its ability to reach those needing help, such as military families and children needing a loving home, and also to locate new donors to help fund crucial support services. Launched in December 2008, the Center’s new website did more than just receive praises for its inviting design. It enabled a new service, increased the number of clients the Center has been able to reach and improved its fundraising efforts.
Project Gallery Page
Organization's Website
Child Crisis Center's New Website
Organization Information:
Organization Name
Child Crisis Center
Organization's Mission Statement
Our Mission: Strong Families, Safe Kids. The Child Crisis Center is committed to preventing and treating child abuse and neglect. We accomplish this by supporting and strengthening families through education and intervention, providing a safe environment for children to heal and grow, raising community awareness, recruiting, training and supporting foster and adoptive families, and taking the lead and setting the standard for other to follow.
Organization Website
Submission Information
Impact Essay
Not a dull moment ever occurs at the Child Crisis Center where we are thankful for countless things each day. Behind the scenes of the smiling faces of kids we are working to keep safe, families we are helping to strengthen and children we are matching with loving parents, is Adobe CS3 and for it, we are very grateful.
As the economy began to take a turn for the worse, more families and children found themselves in need of the Child Crisis Center’s emergency shelter, adoption and foster care services and parenting classes and support groups.
Without an advertising budget, the Child Crisis Center (the Center) had to increase its ability to reach those needing help through difficult times, such as military families, children needing a loving home and new donors to help fund crucial support services; it turned to Adobe CS3 for assistance reaching its clients and inciting social change. Launched in December 2008, the Center’s new website (www.childcrisis.org) did more than just receive praises for its inviting design. It enabled a new service, increased the number of clients the Center has been able to reach and improved its fundraising efforts.
On the Child Crisis Center’s new website, focus was able to be given to a new collaboration between 25 agencies across Arizona, Operation Family Support. The programs created by this collaborative effort serve the unique needs of military families throughout the state. With the flexibility and visibility of the Center’s website, Operation Family Support was able to reach enough families in the Phoenix area to launch 3 of its programs this past winter. Over 100 parents and children affected by military service have been served since December 2008.
The Child Crisis Center has seen more than twice as much interest from potential adoptive or foster care parents that have found its programs through the new website. During the months of December 2007 through March 2008, the Center’s adoption and foster care program received 23 inquiries through its old website. Through its new website, during the months of December 2008 through March 2009, the Center’s adoption and foster care program received 52 inquiries!
Donors surfing the net have more easily identified the Child Crisis Center as an organization to which to lend financial support due to its new website. Despite the dismal economic outlook, the Child Crisis Center’s expectations to receive less monetary support during the 2008/2009 holiday season were incorrect and it has Adobe CS3 to thank! During the 2007/2008 holiday season (Dec 2007 – March 2008), $23,535 was donated to the Child Crisis Center through its old website. During the 2008/2009 holiday season (Dec 2008 – March 2009), $28,380 was donated to the Child Crisis Center through its new website.
Visitors find that the Child Crisis Center’s new website is very clearly informative about the Child Crisis Center’s existence, the services it provides to children and families in the Greater Phoenix Area and how community members can help further its mission to break the cycle of child abuse.
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Submitted by ccc on April 15, 2009 - 2:44pm
The Powerhouse Kids
Organization Information:
Organization Name
Durango Discovery Museum
Organization's Mission Statement
Our Mission: To ignite curiosity, spark imagination, and power exploration. Our Vision: To be a leading science and educational center in the Southwest that brings together curious minds of all ages, inspires innovative learning, and unleashes human potential.
Organization Website
http://www.durangodiscovery.org
Submission Information
Impact Essay
One hundred years in the making—no wonder they’re done waiting. The Durango Discovery Museum at the Powerhouse is supposed to be the coolest interactive science center ever. But will it ever open? Five intrepid kids grow impatient with the grownups’ slow progress, so they take matters into their own hands. With the help of a mysterious voice from the past (played by NPR’s infamous Dr. Science), the Kids discover their special powers and set out to make their vision for the Powerhouse "really real." High jinks ensue. It’s a kid show. It's viral fundraising for a worthy social sector cause. It's a history lesson with a shocking twist. It’s your chance to help the Kids bring the Powerhouse to life! The Powerhouse Kids is a live-action webisode series designed to engage audiences in the mission to open an interactive science center for all ages in a historic power plant on the banks of the Animas River in Durango, Colorado. The series was produced by the Durango Discovery Museum, Exposure Productions, The City of Durango, and City Span 10 with support from the Preserve America Initiative. Sarah Douglas of gaiacreative, graphic designer for the project, on driving social change through strong design: "As the Durango Discovery Museum’s graphic designer, I use Adobe’s Creative Suite to handle all aspects of the non-profit science museum’s needs. The museum is constantly growing and adding new educational and fundraising programs, so they need brand identity for their programs quickly and on a small budget. Adobe Illustrator is my go-to program for all logos and vector artwork, including the Powerhouse Kids insignia—currently "playing" as a temporary tattoo on a kid near you. I can quickly move from one Adobe program to another, creating graphics in Illustrator that place seamlessly into a DVD eco-wallet design created in InDesign. InDesign is really a powerhouse (no pun intended/well, kinda). In it, I create everything from large-scale banners to push-the-envelope invitations and posters. Photoshop allows me to save artwork as JPGs and transparent GIFs–making it simple for museum staff to use their logos on pieces created in-house. Adobe Creative Suite allows me to build a solid brand for the museum. It helps me create a variety of designs over numerous mediums that all share the "fun and interactive" concept. Come to think of it, CS programs are a lot like that for me–fun and interactive. I’m constantly discovering new capabilities and exploring new ideas with the help of the software. My explorations within the software have allowed the Durango Discovery Museum to stand out as a force for social change through informal, hands-on learning."
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URL
http://bit.ly/phkidsvideocomplete
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Virtual Tour of Auschwitz, a collaboration between Auschwitz Museum and Remember-org
Organization Information:
Organization Name
Project ABE (remember.org)
Organization's Mission Statement
Remember.org is the Holocaust Community founded in 1995, an educational social network of contributors (survivors, liberators, historians, and authors), sharing the best research resources and stories through art, photography, painting, audio/video, and remembrance. We provide materials for grade school to early college students worldwide. Project ABE is the nonprofit that created Remember.org.
This Internet project is about remembering the lives and voices of those who survived, and it is Remember.org's honor to share this for free since April 25, 1995.
Organization Website
Submission Information
Impact Essay
Remember is an important word in any language, and in regards to the Holocaust, it is a word invoked to keep the human stories alive, and to be sure events like these never happen again. When you search for “Remember” on Google, you’ll find Remember.org, and the Virtual Tour of Auschwitz.
The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz is now live, in Polish and English at the museum’s own site, sharing an intimate view of the museum and camp in 360 degree views to a worldwide audience. Before this Tour, few educational institutions (or parents) had the money or time to visit this important historical site. Now:
1. Social change #1 is the ability to make learning interesting and interactive, with students learning wherever they are, whenever they want. Millions of students have taken the tour since 2005, and many more will see it now (launched Feb. 2009)at the actual Auschwitz web site. This is the first time anyone has been able to see the camp, as it looks today, as if you were there.
2. Social Change #2; this is a collaborative project between many people who have never met, yet can work together. The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz shows the power of the Internet, and small grassroots communities in effecting social change. The entire Virtual Tour project, including the photographer’s time and effort, and creative development, was funded by Project ABE, and shared with the Auschwitz museum for free (and all produced with Adobe products, thanks!).
3. Social Change #3: When students learn about the Holocaust, with new and interesting learning materials, they often decide to apply these lessons to fight injustice in their own lives. Now one of the most important historical sites inspires them to change their present by remembering the lessons of the past, at a place that only a short while ago, few were able to visit.
Remember.org mission is to preserve the stories of survivors while driving social change through learning materials provided for free to classrooms. Yet the Virtual Tour of Auschwitz took this development to another level, incubated at our site and then fully launched at the actual Auschwitz web site today.
The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz has enabled this museum to reach out to a worldwide community, providing an innovative 360 degree tour of the Auschwitz camp and museum. Visitors to the site simply click their mouse and can see what the camp looks like today, while following lesson plans attached to the interactive map.
Remember.org's goal is to help change education by providing content that teachers and schools choose to share with their students, and provide it all at no charge, always. Now a teacher in Des Moines, or Shenzhen, or Bangalore, can share this important museum without leaving home. And we will remember...
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URL
http://remember.org/auschwitz/credits2.php
Submitted by remember on April 14, 2009 - 2:58pm