Kicking off the Haiti plan

Since a major earthquake hit Haiti on January 12, the global media has been saturated with images of fallen buildings, dead bodies and piles of rubble, along with death figures that don’t seem to have stopped rising.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of humanitarian aid has been dispatched to the area, but this is not something that can be mended overnight. But what can one person do? A lot, it seems, if they have a sharp mind and the power of social networking behind them. UCC student Ronan Kelly set up the Facebook group Soccer Stars for Haiti on January 19. Within 48 hours, it had 15,000 members. That number has since grown to 21,000.

Kelly and six other Irish college students were the founding members of the group, which was inspired by an article written by Irish Independent sports critic Vincent Hogan. In his weekly column, Hogan remarked that if every professional footballer gave just one days basic wages to the relief effort for Haiti, millions of euro could be raised instantly. “I was reading the article, and had Facebook open at the time,” says Kelly. “I set up the group and invited some friends. The response was huge.” Suddenly there were people joining that I didn’t know, that I’d never heard of. Word got around very fast and it just took off.”

DCU student Ed Leamy was one of the group’s founding members. “It was really more who we knew than what we knew,” he says. “People have been very willing to help.” The boys were quick to point out that the group isn’t a charity. “We’re just putting the idea out there, it’s something symbolic. By ourselves, we can’t set the example with a huge donation in the same way that a professional footballer could. But everyone’s been very positive.”

Just three days in, the group had its first major success. Diego Forlan, a player with Atletico Madrid, agreed to donate one day’s pay (around €4,800), to the relief effort. His donation was directly inspired by Soccer Stars for Haiti.

In its first week, the group was featured on Irish radio stations and it was, of course, mentioned by Hogan in his column. “A week ago, I didn’t believe in Facebook. And I’ve since found 15,000 reasons to reconsider,” said Hogan.

Kelly says he is aware that he is “working against the clock” to spread his idea before the public loses interest. “We have a very small window of time. Obviously the donation from Diego Forlan was a huge boost, but we’re still waiting for something else to get more energy into the project, to really get people listening.”