Why can’t I get anyone interested in National Homeless Person’s Week? – a PR’s confession
August 4, 2011
By Georgina Liew, our Marketing and Communications Manager based in Melbourne, Victoria
I’m going to admit up front, the blog post is not the usual public relations piece about what we’re doing well. Rather, it’s somewhat of a confession or admission about something I wish we were communicating better about – the issue of homelessness.
As a communications professional for the last 15 years, I need to tell you one of the hardest gigs I’ve ever had is trying to raise awareness of the issue of homelessness. And sadly, as we come to the of National Homeless Person’s Week, it has been no different.
I have blogged, tweeted, emailed and …oh dear, resorted to face-to-face communication…but to no avail. Even speaking with our General Manager of Employment Services, Sally Matheson, yesterday, we had to concede that our own efforts as an organisation to support this week have been underwhelming – and as she aptly put it “if we can’t raise awareness with our own staff, then why would we be successful with people outside the organisation”.
My only solace this week has been that we don’t seem to be the only one not getting the attention on this issue as we would wish. Writer, comedian and social commentator, Catherine Deveny, and a firm advocate for this issue tweeted:
Homeless women and kid is the biggest most damaging issue I attempt to raise awareness about and the one people care the least about.
I replied, and commented that my recent blog post National Homeless Person’s Week – can Census data help the homless? was my lowest ranking blog post ever, and while I admit it may not be my ‘best’ post of all time, and also not my most compelling title, but I can’t help but think there’s a bigger issue at play here.
I’d love your thoughts…what sort of information are you interested in the issue of homelessness? If you could take a few moments, to complete the poll below, I would greatly appreciate it.
There’s still a couple days left of National Homeless Person’s Week…check out my blog post mentioned above for some easy ways to get involved.
