If you follow Concepts by Jones you should have seen that I partook in a challenge called, ’24 hours Challenge’. It was a goal to do something selfless this year, but I didn’t know in which way I could be of help. Normally when I thought about helping, it always came with a dollar sign. To be honest, this year’s budget didn’t allow me to be of any help whatsoever, so I thought of a creative way to help while sharpening my sword a little. This was the birth of the challenge, helping a charity/nonprofit with their branding or any creative service within 24hours and speeding up my creative process as well.
“The founder has been doing it for over 24 years and I felt it was a good initiative for me to serve.”
The first thing I had to do was reach out to charities that I could help. This was easier than I thought as there were plenty who lacked “marketing” budget and could use the help. I selected one organization to start with first, but as there were so many, I quickly decided that it might be a good thing to do one every six months. In this way I can help, but also stay on top of my game. I contacted the organization who would be the pioneer in this event discussed the rules and pretty much studied their story as much as I could to create something unique to them.
The organization that I chose was MOET, short for Mangochi Orphans Education and Training. MOET is an organization located in Malawi, Africa. They provide vulnerable (orphan) children with quality, convenient and comprehensive education to give them a brighter future. The founder has been doing it for over 24 years and I felt it was a good initiative for me to serve.
The kickoff started last week Sunday at 11am (randomly chosen) and I went for 24 hours straight. I should admit that I did fall asleep for 3 hours but made up for it in my waking hours. It was a challenge, my brain was overworked at midnight, but I had to keep going. This challenge taught me a lot about myself, about my designing process and the rooms I should improvement in. It’s cliché to say giving back feels good, but it’s understanding that I’ve donated the most valuable thing that I have to a good cause. I could have easily filled my Sunday with Netflix or some other type of entertainment, but this felt a lot better and strangely enough gave me ton of energy.
The burning question, do I thirst for more? Yes! I’m already looking forward to May, when I can select one of the many who reached out.
In case you have missed this initiative please check Instagram to see the process and results of the ’24 hours Challenge’. I will be uploading the process on Behance soon, so stay tuned.