A 6000-strong survey campaign in China
With over 6000 responses to the #futurevote survey, our partnership in China has delivered outstanding results. We recently caught up with Bei Wang and Alex Wang, who have helped us build Chinese participation in our online consultations.
[IMAGE 0]“As we come to the end of the project, I am extremely happy with the results which have gone beyond my expectations. I believe this shows that sustainability is very relevant for China, and I am looking forward to seeing how our partnership will evolve in the future. My approach to outreach was divided into two stages. I began by contacting several organisations who, due to the relevance and accessible nature of the content, helped to generate a buzz around the survey quite extensively. It was during this process that I contacted Alex Wang from YouThink; an organisation where I saw many similarities with the WBA in their mission and values to increase action in the key sustainability challenges of our time. When we initially designed the survey, I was eager to position youth as a key source for outreach. The younger generations play a central role in the growing momentum of sustainability in China and act as a bridge to the older generations.”
YouThink is a China-based organisation which aims to educate young people on global issues and opportunities, collaborating on projects which empower them to participate in and drive change at local, regional and global level.
[IMAGE 1]“We believe that the SDGs represent a vision of the future – our future, as young people. YouThink helps to generate ownership of the future through creating meaningful action. We work with 17 partner organisations and connected with roughly 400 members and volunteers for this survey. I was eager for us to work with WBA’s #futurevote survey as I believe it signals the opportunity to start a global conversation on the future of our planet through the SDGs. The survey is very effective here in China. As Bei [LINK 2] : mentioned, the graphic design and simple layout make it easy for people to interact with the content, which in turn makes it easier for our YouThink volunteers to build public engagement. Our work was predominantly based online and utilised our vast networks of young people across China. I believe online networks are a powerful means to build and discover new SDG dialogues, and I am intrigued to see how the WBA can build on this as they work towards launching their first benchmarks.”
[IMAGE 3] [IMAGE 4] [IMAGE 5]Screenshots of survey engagement and launch clippings on Chinese social media platforms
Our collaboration with Bei Wang and YouThink has been an effective learning opportunity for the WBA in terms of communication and outreach, specifying the value in approaching different geographies and populations with relevant engagement styles.