Last year, an initiative known as Twestival led to over 1,000 volunteers and 10,000 donors raising over 250,000 USD for charity:water. This resulted in more than 55 wells in Uganda, Ethiopia and India being created, benefiting over 17,000 people.
Six months later, Twestival Local was held is 130 cities around the world, raising over 450,000 USD for 135 local charities around the world, and bringing the total amount raised in 2009 up to over 750,000 USD.
What is Twestival?
The aim of Twestival is to use social media for social good by getting people to host local events and have fun while raising awareness around a chosen charitable issue. 100% of the money raised around the world goes to Twestival’s nominated charity. The theme of this year’s Twestival is education, and after an online vote, Concern Worldwide was chosen as this year’s charitable cause.
Founded in 1968, Concern Worldwide battles to meet the needs of people living in extreme poverty and is dedicated to the reduction of their suffering and working towards ultimately eliminating poverty altogether. Concern’s education programs target the poorest people in the poorest countries in the world, and currently reach over 700,000 people in 25 countries, and each of every city taking part in this year’s Twestival will be able to choose which area of the education program to support.
The Twestivals will be raising funds towards constructing and improving schools and supplying them with the necessary materials that they need, such as desks, pencils, teacher training, clean water, and developing a curriculum.
The UK Twestivals
At the time of writing, the following UK events have been announced, all taking place on Thursday 25th March:
- Barnsley
- Birmingham
- Brighton
- Bristol
- Bury St Edmonds
- Cardiff
- Chester
- Cornwall
- Dublin
- Dundee
- Edinburgh
- Exeter
- Farnham
- Galway
- Glasgow
- Inverness
- Isle of Man
- Liverpool
- London
- Manchester
- Newcastle
- Nottingham
- Oxford
- Plymouth
- Reading
- Stoke
- Windsor
Thanks to @TwestivalUK for providing this list – it’s worth following them on Twitter to keep up to date with announcements relating to the UK.
