Our Better World (OBW) is the digital storytelling initiative of the Singapore International Foundation (SIF). OBW tells stories across Asia to inspire people to take action and create a positive impact in the world.
Our Better Earth, a three-year series, places a spotlight on the challenges the environment is facing, humanity's history in creating our current environmental plight, and more importantly the hope and tangible solutions we can take to create a better planet for all life.
This year's edition of our environment series featured stories in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. These fell under the theme 'Rebuild', following our earlier series 'Reset', which focused on putting a stop to environmental damage.
Across the three stories, we took a closer look at how the negative impact to nature is impacting humanity in turn, and how ground-up initiatives are making a difference to the environment while rallying communities to restore the environment that we have broken.
Our mission is to use stories to support the rebuilding of our environments by:
The strategy was to feature grassroots organisations across three Southeast Asian countries to show the catalytic power of community-driven action in our local environments.
Our general target audiences include Urban Communities, Eco-conscious Communities and ‘Neutrals’ including Millennials & Gen Z. Across paid media, we targeted social media users who like inspiring environment stories and those who have an interest in nature across Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Singapore and the Philippines.
We produced two short documentaries and one multimedia piece that celebrated these communities, casting compelling individuals who walk the talk in promoting environmental conservation.
We also complemented these content pieces with first-person blog posts from conservationists and thought leaders. Besides the launch across OBW's social media platforms, we also organised a community event where our story producers, writers and thought leaders were invited to share insights in panel discussions and conversations with the audience.
Our campaign generated 7.5 million views and inspired more than 2000 actions, including volunteer sign-ups for the featured organisations.
Our post-event survey revealed that 80 per cent of participants were inspired to learn more about environmental issues, while 79 per cent felt that we can rebuild the environment if we work together, and 44 per cent were inspired to volunteer in environmental initiatives.
We also received written feedback from the participants who expressed an appreciation of the importance of environmentally-driven planning.
“I loved how the panelists covered a range of issues from the practical to the spiritual. I'm heartened to know that we are taking action before an apocalyptic world occurs. I also think that it was helpful to know that the younger generation does not have the apathy that my generation did.”
The [OBW] events that we had the privilege to be a part of in Singapore in October 2023 provided us with a much appreciated opportunity to interact and potentially collaborate with Singaporeans and other communities in our region. The experience reinforced our positive impressions of Singapore in terms of how its manages cultural pluralism/diversity and promotes environmentally beneficial efforts, as well as how its citizens work collaboratively to reach its overarching goals.
