Social media are powerful tools that can help to promote, develop, and spread good ideas and start new projects.

I’m a volunteer in a non-profit association “Fruta Feia”, an association that fights against food waste and helps local farmers by distributing their fruits and vegetables. Some have flaws or don’t have the expected aesthetic appearance, others don’t have the expected size or shape. These fruits and vegetables are perfectly edible and would finish either in waste or as animal food. This is an unacceptable social, environmental and economic harm, because Europe loses or puts to waste 20% of the food produced each year (Comission, s.d.).

The use of social media by this association isn’t that much important nowadays, the association is well-known, associates, volunteers and collaborators promote it sufficiently by talking to friends, families or by posting comments or photos on their own social media. But as Inês Gomes collaborator of “Fruta Feia” for two years and a half and head of northern delegation says, social media were crucial at the beginning to promote the idea, to create a network of local producers and to bring people either to become a member, a collaborator or a volunteer.

I’ve participated in a similar project in the past, and when I came to live in Oporto I have searched for this kind of association. In my researches I found articles, videos and eventually went to their site to gather more information. Soon enough I became an associate, a few weeks later I was a volunteer helping to prepare baskets that associates come every week to collect.

Social Media are used by many charities or non-profit associations to help them get enough resources (Sekar, s.d.) (Han, Bok, & Kean, 2019), however people tend to be more cautious and less trustworthy. They don’t take for granted what they see or hear anymore, “trust in charities is at an all-time low” (Shawcross, 2016).” In fact, “Britons are less trusting of social media than other major nations” (Hern, s.d.). However social media change the way people interact with those associations. Social media catch people’s attention, with the photos, the proximity, and the possibility of texting or having a conversation with the collaborators. This can increase the will to know more or participate. If one of those associations is successful, it will probably bring to the attention of a traditional medium, such as television, a a piece of news that could make it seem more reliable, and capture even more people’s attention, like the one made by RTP about “Fruta Feia” (Feia, s.d.).

Social media can help reshape the world and bring more awareness to our minds, by spreading new ideas, by promoting new behaviours, social media can help our society evolve and become more reasonable and balanced.

Written by Hélder Magalhães