Themes » Awareness Raising » Identifying Local Issues

“The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King Jr. (African-American civil rights activist)

Before you can start an awareness campaign, you need to know what is happening around you. What are the local issues, problems or difficulties people around you are dealing with? These local issues can cover a lot of different topics, such as lack of health services, lack of quality education, food security issues, gender based violence, poverty, corruption, lack of meaningful youth participation.

You practice!

To identify these local issues, you can follow a few strategies:

  • Brainstorm session: Organize a brainstorm session, with friends or on your own, and write down as many ideas about local issues as you can on a big sheet of paper. Don’t feel limited to only think about big issues; small issues also need to receive attention!

  • (Informal) Interviews or discussions: If you really want to know what’s on people’s minds, then you can start interviewing a few people in your community. Ask them what they see as an important issue in the community, how it is affecting them directly and what they would like to see changed.

  • Observations: Go out in your neighbourhood, in your community and observe what the difficulties for people might be. Do you see corruption in the street? Do you see women getting hit by their husbands? Do you miss a health facility which is youth friendly? Map your observations and write down everything you notice!