Greenpeace is known for taking bold and extravagant actions to protect environment and help jumpstart the conversation about ecological dangers, but this organization is not the only one to persuade people to take actions for the planet protection. Australian Red Cross has teamed up with Belgiovane Williams Mackay (BWM) Sydney and digital agency Pollen to launch a social campaign Target Nucler Weapons aiming primarily at younger generation—the aim of this initiative is to start conversation about the legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapon and get more supporters to raise awareness of the devastating consequences of this weapon of massive destruction and advocate for banning it.

Photo: A snapshot from the targetnuclearweapons.org.au website

At the online destination, users are invited to join the international community, which steps against using nuclear weapons, by voting—the organization says that each vote is a great contribution to the cause, since they all will make up a statistics to be shown to the international community. “This November, representatives from Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies from 186 countries, will meet in Geneva. At this meeting, Australian Red Cross will use the results of the vote to demonstrate a groundswell of public concern about the horrific effects of nuclear weapons,” says the website.

For November 14, Australian Red Cross plans ‘social explosion’ (this resonates perfectly with the bomb theme), and the more people will sign up before it, the better, so visitors to the hub are asked to spread the word and get their friends into pushing for change on this important issue. «BWM came to us with a really interesting online project to spread the word about banning the use of nuclear weapons. Together we came up with the ‘social explosion’ idea, mainly because such an idea would only be possible for a client like Australian Red Cross. You couldn’t do this type of campaign for a consumer brand, it just wouldn’t work,» shared Pollen director Brett Mitchell.

Photo: A snapshot from the targetnuclearweapons.org.au website

To know more about the problem, visitors may read the stories of survivors or learn about the cost of nuclear war from infographics. They also can get inspired by browsing other people from Australia who “are making nuclear weapons the target by being part of the social explosion” and have already joined the movement—they are ‘marked’ on Google Maps with a bomb prohibited sign. The campaign is supported by Australian-born artist Reg Mombassa, blues musician Ash Grunwald and TV personality Julie McCrossin to name but a few. So far, the social reach of the campaign is 233,877 people (Ash has invited the biggest number of supporters, 7769). Australians are also invited to take part in a paper crane photo competition, inspired by a story of Sadako Sasaki, a 12-year-old girl who got leukemia as an after-effect of the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.

“It’s an issue that is relevant to everyone—a nuclear war would have catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences for the human race. Australian Red Cross believes it’s time for the global community to decide if it wants these weapons continuing to threaten our future or become a thing of our past,” says Australian Red Cross CEO Robert Tickner.