The Free Kareem Coalition needs your help
A group of us have been running the Free Kareem Campaign for the past 639 days. You can imagine how hard it is to keep pushing Kareem’s story back into the media after such a long time, but for at least one solid year we have managed to do this through holding at least 3 simultaneous worldwide rallies and launching a series of Kareem-related events, in collaboration with human rights groups everywere. And even though we have exhausted all our ideas we are still not exhausted, and are willing to keep working hard for this cause.
As the Director of the campaign it is my job to spend hours studying other successful campaigns and trying to innovate and expand existing ideas. Today, after looking at my notes, I realized that I have tried pretty much everything achievable that I can think of over the past year and a half. In other words it is time for me to start seeking constructive suggestions for me to implement on the campaign.
Our main idea right now is to keep spreading the word, and promoting the site’s mission and efforts, but in a way that is more do-able and easy, instead of requesting that people write about Kareem or sending him letters (people are lazy, I had to learn to accept that.) Although thousands of people were involved in our letter-writing campaign, now I am doing my best to come up with creative things that has the potential of involving thousands more, through other means.
Here is what we are hoping to establish next on the campaign site: An embeddable widget that has more than a picture and the duration of Kareem’s stay, which is already available.
What examples do you suggest that you think would be an excellent addition on our and other people’s sites? I have looked through all the techy rights groups that are innovative enough to pose as an example to other emerging campaigns, but none so far strike me as ‘quality.’
If you believe strongly in Kareem’s freedom and the freedom of those like him, and the very idea of free speech, it is time for you to get involved, at the very least with your suggestions!
What do YOU want to see on the site that you think would be useful for everyone?
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“Flowers for Kareem”
Maybe a crazy idea: is it possible to send flower bouquets to Kareem in prison? One could ask people to pay online for one bouquet, with the possibility to include a text (written online by the sender), directed straight to a company in Egypt that can take orders like that. Advantages: 1) it costs money, so if it happens it shows that people are really supportive, 2) it will morally support Kareem, 3) if Kareem receives hundreds of bouquets, it will at least create a hilarious situation that may reach the media. Kareem could make the whole prison more beautiful. Should be agreed with him of course, since it may also put him in an awkward situation that he does not want.
If it is made really easy (click on something, pay a small amount online, write a short text) it may work. A good collaboration with a flower company is probably crucial. That company could in fact earn quite some money!