Me Too - Successful launch of national Japanese G8 campaign
A coalition of organisations successfully launched the Me Too campaign. It aims to influence the Government of Japan (in its pivotal role as Chair) to lead this year’s G8 to deliver more and better aid for health.
The campaign run by Oxfam Japan, JOICFP, World Vision Japan, Africa Japan Forum, with support from DATA/One, held a Tokyo press conference attended by 19 journalists.
The launch also promoted the campaign’s action. The Japanese public are being invited to say “Me Too” and join the call for the G8 to end the global health crisis, in which over 30,000 people die every day from preventable and treatable illness. To exploit the coincidence of the first day of the G8 summit falling on the festival of Tanabata, marked widely in Japan by people making a wish, people will be making a Tanabata wish for global health by saying Me Too. The central message is that basic health for all is possible if the G8 deliver on past promises.
The wishes/voices of the Japanese public will be delivered (in a media worthy way) to the Japanese Government in the final days before July’s summit. They will also be added to the total presented for the GCAP globally organised G8 campaign action.
Why is it called Me Too?
The campaign name is deliberately chosen to meet the considerable challenge of a culture within Japan of people being very reluctant to raise their voice and speak out. It addresses this by directly appealing to another widespread trait within Japan of wanting to be part of a group or popular trend.
What next
An extensive lobby plan has been developed, with a wider coalition of 14 NGOs working on global health. The implementation of this actually started several months ago and has already delivered a range of activity with government targets.
The main focus for popular campaigning will be driving the public to sign up on the Me Too website, with a wide range of website promotion being the major activity. The fact that the website address was carried in most of the media coverage listed above was a nice bonus for this.
The main popular “moment” in the run up to the G8 will be around TICAD (the five yearly Tokyo International Conference on African Development) at the end of May, which plans are currently being finalised for. Further high profile media activity, including press adverts, are planned for the G8 Finance Ministers in mid June.
To read more about this initiative in Japanese, please visit the website: www.metoo2008.jp.
For more information contact Stuart McWilliam: stuart@oxfam.jp + 81 3 3834 1556.