Let’s make air pure

#HawaBadlo is a social awareness campaign urging citizens to switch to environment-friendly habits in order to battle the pollution crisis

Delhi was recently labeled as the most polluted city in the world by the WHO, setting off the alarm amongst netizens to take productive measures to battle against air pollution. Gurgaon-based start-up Social Cloud Ventures launched an interesting digital campaign called #HawaBadlo or #ChangeTheAir urging citizens to switch to environment-friendly habits. “The idea was not to preach or to teach but to inspire people and make them come together to fight against air pollution,” shares Nipun Arora, Founder, Hawa Badlo.

The campaign kick-started with the release of a video titled The Air Seller, a social experiment. The video captured the various emotions of citizens when they were asked to buy packaged fresh air. Nipun explains, “The activity was carried out to give the citizens the feel of breathing in unpolluted air. The idea was to spread awareness about the deteriorating air quality in the National Capital Region and motivate people to inculcate air-friendly habits such as switching to CNG/electric vehicles, carpooling and use of public transport.”

Today, the campaign is one of the most effective initiatives against air pollution in recent times and has now touched more than 6.8 billion lives digitally to join hands against pollution. “The idea started when my four-year-old nephew decided to celebrate a cracker-free Diwali and educated us about the changing air quality,” shares Nipun.

The success of The Air Seller motivated the team to launch their second video Raavan ko Roko where the anchor, dressed up as Raavan, claimed the vehicles of people driving diesel and petrol his own. Around the same time, they also started ground activities to gauge the understanding of their digital communication amongst Delhiites.

Their next video spoke about the risks that the traffic policemen go through on a regular basis because of the rising level of pollution through the #GiftAMask campaign. Talking about the video, Nipun says, “Amidst the chain of messages flowing in from various social media channels of the campaign the most surprising was from a mom of a three-year-old, Samreen, who depicted qualities which are hard to find in adults these days and gifted her own mask to a traffic policeman. The entire Hawa Badlo team was so moved with the gesture that they recreated the entire episode into a video and launched it on social media channels.”

He continues, “Lack of awareness is the root cause of people not being able to do anything for society and the environment. We at Hawa Badlo aim at spreading awareness amongst people and motivating them. The #GiftAMask is just an initiative for the traffic cops. The video informs people about the problems that the traffic cops go through everyday and Team Hawa Badlo asks everyone of you to use the hashtag #GiftAMask on Twitter. With every tweet you do with the hashtag, Team Hawa Badlo with GAIL (India) Limited will gift masks to traffic cops on your behalf.”

Going forward, Hawa Badlo plans to rope in as many people as possible to spread awareness and educate people on the ground level. “It’s a peoples movement. We do not want it to be restricted based on an individual or a particular brand. Many corporates have come forward to help us in taking the initiative to the next level without any personal or brand interest,” he concludes.