Australia: Crane blog
Human beings - not for sale
Crane blog
Young reformers: Sam Suke and Sophie Gerrie
Church: Lutheran Church of Australia
Implementation period: Dec 2015-Dec 2019
How many people were involved? 1
How many people did you reach? 1100+
Links to the Project : http://www.samsuke.com.au/blog
What did you aim at?
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To demonstrate the cumulative benefit and impact of small everyday acts practiced by ordinary people.
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To demonstrate that people worldwide have a desire to celebrate the small, everyday good deeds of ordinary people.
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To document and distribute 1000 stories of 1000 good deeds done by 1000 people
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To demonstrate that social media can be used to enlighten, educate and inspire through the tales of everyday people
What did you achieve?
In the first 12-months...
- 250 stories were documented and distributed
- Over 1,100 people have subscribed to the blog
- Subscribers hail from 27 countries
- Over 17,000 'reactions' have been recorded to the blog posts (e.g. like, love, etc)
- Each story/post reaches approx. 800 people
What did you do?
I folded one-thousand origami cranes. Each crane will be distributed to a person who demonstrates an everyday act of kindness or love. The stories (and good deeds) of each crane and person are written and distributed primarily via a Facebook page, called Crane Blog. Further dissemination of the crane stories is achieved via public speeches at schools, conferences and retreats. After 12-months, 250 cranes have been gifted and their stories shared via Crane Blog. The project is expected to continue for another three-years until each crane is gifted.
Interview with young reformer Sam Suke
- What is the ongoing reformation you want to see in your church?
I’d like that everyone has the opportunity to express why they love and appreciate their neighbours in the everyday life. I’d love to see people feel just as comfortable loving family and friends as they are in loving strangers.
- What has been the reaction of the project among the youth?
Many youth have followed, shared and contributed ideas on how the blog can developed and further reaching others online. The reaction online and face-to-face is positive and people in my church and world wide stories have been encouraging to keep the crane blog demonstrating love and kindness. Facebook and Instagram shows the outreach by every post, likes and reactions in Australia or around the world.
- How has been the participation of the youth in the reformation project?
I track the participation mainly online (likes, reactions, comments and messages). The Crane blog participation online in Facebook is in Australia (Melbourne), Canada, USA, Italy and Russia among others. The stories or videos can be post every week in the facebook page in the Crane blog, each of post is based on a person's story. The cranes are given to every individual person and keeps it.
- What has been challenging about creating the project?
If we see someone does something good is easy to celebrate them, but often we need to believe that people do good things before we can see it. The greatest challenge is been first believing that the ordinary day can be celebrated and that enable that 365 people can be identified for the blog goal. I need to be patience for the stories and the impact on the blog and the people to reach 1000 cranes/stories. Engaging men online is difficult, 70% reactions are coming from female followers. Definitely the challenge is the time what I spend on the blog.
- Did everything go as planned?
Yes, it did go as planned. I just didn’t expect to take cranes overseas with me when I have been travelling, that was not part of my plans. Also, I didn’t know I would be known as the “crane guy” in my home town.
- How do you see the continuity of the project?
I still over 700 cranes to give and to write about. I want to continue and the audience hopefully follows. I need time and people to continue.