Australian Volunteers International: Public Relations

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Analysis
Objectives
Publics
Strategy
Tactics
Calendar
Evaluation
References

Executive Summary

Australian Volunteers International (AVI) is an Australian-based NGO whose major agenda is to deploy the services of qualified individuals to fight poverty while at the same time promoting human rights. Besides, the program acquires volunteer recruits from around the world with the intention of working with them on projects that relate to wildlife and environmental conservation. However, its major focus is on areas where pollution levels are high to ensure that countries that have low pollution levels maintain the trend. AVI is open to all people who are willing to lend their support to its initiatives.

As a PR consultant for this organization, I have been given the opportunity to design a communication plan whose main objective is to promote the organization to China. The intention of this proposal is to endorse a conservation volunteer campaign that is aimed at reducing the pollution levels in China, which is among the countries that have high levels of environmental degradation in the world.

Analysis

China’s adoption of the Australian Volunteers International (AVI) volunteer program is bound to improve the current situation that threatens to disrupt its ecosystem. China is one of the countries in the world that are experiencing rapid environmental degradation. The dreadful conditions have so far affected basic resources such as air, water, and soil. They have also affected plants, animals, wildlife, and microorganisms.

Several factors that have contributed to this mess include economic growth, urbanization, increase in energy consumption, population growth intensified agricultural activities, and increased transportation among others. Exhaustion of resources and the release of harmful chemicals into the environment have greatly compromised the country’s environmental situation. The result of the effects of some of these environmentally harmful activities has contributed to breathing difficulties, illnesses, and death in children and adults (Guo et al. 2013). Crop production has also fallen significantly.

AVI is an organization that is involved in attracting and coordinating volunteers to participate in environmental restoration projects (Ivanova 2012). AVI was established in 1963 as an extension of the Australian Volunteers Abroad (AVA) to handle environmental concerns. Currently, AVI’s volunteer program boasts of worldwide recognition based on the way it has attracted applications from all over the world.

China has a large number of students who have just completed college-level education. The majority of others who are still in college can find time to take part in environmental volunteer activities that can contribute to the protection of the environment against harmful activities. Students also stand to benefit from skills that they will gain through their participation in this initiative by learning how to work in teams and/or accomplish tasks. Students who are taking environmental-related courses will benefit the most by building their experience in their fields to improve their resumes and/or find favor when looking for employment in the future.

Failing to implement this initiative will have far-reaching consequences on the future of China’s hard-to-contemplate ecosystem. The current photochemical smoke will increase. The situation will lead to more respiratory problems, poor visibility, and low photosynthetic capacity in plants. This situation will affect China’s labor force in its expansionary prospects and discourage foreign investment due to the extensive environmental population.

Objectives

This campaign hopes to get the attention of the Chinese government to institute policies that will help in reducing the level of pollution in the country and consequently the effects that toxic wastes have on the environment. Another objective is to help Chinese students who are taking courses in the field of environmental conservation to complement the knowledge attained in class with practical skills in the field to make them better professionals and employable in the near future.

Getting volunteers to work on initiatives that are aimed at safeguarding the environment is bound to help students appreciate early enough the role that they can play in reversing the current state of pollution in China’s major cities. Their early involvement in such initiatives will lead to the achievement of great milestones since they will have the energy that is required to push for reforms that will help in repairing the damaged environment.

Publics

The stakeholders in this campaign include environmental practitioners, students, especially those who are taking environment-related courses, the government, organizations that are charged with the task of protecting natural resources, production entities, and the general Chinese population since their input is highly valuable in achieving the campaign’s objective of reducing pollution levels in the country (Hillary 2014). The government has the responsibility of ensuring that proper policies are put in place to protect the environment against activities that lead to environmental degradation. In the case of the general population, its support is crucial in the achievement of the campaign’s agenda. Their goodwill goes a long way in giving impetus to the various initiatives that this campaign promotes.

Further, bodies that are charged with the responsibility of safeguarding the environment against activities that lead to its degradation have a good understanding of the nature of the problem that this campaign aims to address. They have a good comprehension of some of the challenges that hamper efforts of resolving the issue of environmental degradation in China (Okuda 2011). The conservation volunteer initiative will gain insight into the program’s activities in a way that will enable it to avoid conflict with the already existing initiatives. Conflicts may have the effect of reversing the gains that have been made so far in conserving the environment.

This situation needs to be avoided completely. The implementation of this project is bound to boost the current environmental conservation efforts. It will help to fast track the reversal of the already-caused damage that continues to taint the country’s image internationally. In fact, many countries around the world question China’s commitment to protect the environment and/or contribute to the global initiative of reducing carbon emission as prescribed in the Kyoto Protocol.

Strategy

Implementing this plan will require all stakeholders to lend their support to it and work harmoniously to ensure that it is successful. This suggestion follows the heavy financial requirement of this kind of project upon considering the fact that it is not an income-generating activity. The strategy will involve several steps. The first step will be to seek funds from entities that are willing to support this noble course and see to it that it achieves its intended objectives.

Such entities may include companies, the government, individuals, and foreign donors among others. Companies that aim to boost their image, especially through corporate social responsibility initiatives, may see this plan as an appropriate platform that can serve the purpose of creating a good image to the society (Filatotchev & Nakajima 2014). This accomplishment will help such companies to find favor in the market among their clients and the society at large (Wilcox & Ault 2003).

Another strategy will be to start up some income-generating projects that can help in funding the project and/or help in ensuring that the project has a stable and reliable source of income to guarantee sustainability once it is up and running. Funds for such projects can be obtained through loans from financial institutions that can be repaid using income that will result from the projects. Working with AVI will also help in accessing funds due to the kind of access that it has to financial resources because of the good reputation it has been able to build with time both locally and internationally.

The next step will be to approach the relevant authorities to present them with the proposal and/or seek the required certifications and licenses that allow the project to kick off and run smoothly. Once all these activities are completed, advertisements will be carried out to inform prospective volunteers of the available opportunities. Once potential volunteers submit their applications, recruitment will be done. Recruits will be divided into different teams, which will have various duties assigned to them to perform and/or help in achieving a pollution-free environment.

Tactics

Certain specific strategies will be adopted to ensure that the plan is fully implemented. One of them is massive advertising of the initiative through social media, broadcast media, print media, and roadshows among others (Laran & Tsiros 2013). Another way of getting more people to learn about the initiative is to develop a method of applying to participate in it. Educational tours to schools and colleges will also help students to learn more about it, its role, and its significance to them in the development of their careers. Enlightening the public on this initiative will allow the program to get a good number of volunteers who are ready and willing to take part.

Further, a survey will be done to determine the activities that contribute most to the huge pollution levels in China. These activities will then be prioritized to focus on feasible solutions in view of the volunteer conservation initiative’s capacity. This tactic will ensure that progress is made instead of wasting many resources on causes that are challenging to handle and solve. Teams that will be formed to handle various aspects of the problem of environmental pollution can then be directed to their roles and/or guided throughout their duration as volunteers to ensure that they perform their duties successfully.

Calendar

Proper scheduling of the various activities will be important in ensuring that various tasks and components of the initiative are conducted on time to ensure that the project is completed within the stipulated time. The first task will be fulfilling different requirements to ensure that the initiative is recognized by the law to avoid cases of interruption of activities by authorities. This task will be done during the first two weeks of December 2014.

It is also during this time that funding will be sought. After the initiative has been approved, the second task will involve the promotion of the volunteer conservation initiative to the prospective participants who will mainly be composed of college students together with those who have completed college, although they have not yet been employed. The activity will take about two weeks where the days will be spread between the 1^st and 30^th of January 2015. However, the promotion of the initiative will be a continuous process to ensure that the program gets new volunteers all the time to keep it running to avoid dormancy at some point.

The third process will be the recruitment of participating in environmental conservation volunteers. This activity will run from 16^th to the 30^th of January 2015. During this time, the selected volunteers will be given a three-day training that will be done from the second day following the selection of the volunteers. A one-week period will be set for the qualified volunteers to arrange their accommodation and adjustment of the program to enable them to participate in the volunteer initiative successfully. This task will be done during the 1^st week of February 2015. From 15^th February to15^th July, the first batch of volunteers will take part in the program, after which another batch will be selected to volunteer for another six months, thus making the whole process a continuous one.

Evaluation

The effectiveness of the initiative is central. For this reason, there have to be ways of determining it. One of the measures that will help in determining the effectiveness of the campaign will be the level of photochemical smoke in Chinese towns. A decrease in the levels of this smoke in the air will be a sign of the effectiveness of the program. A second way of measuring the effectiveness of this campaign will be to measure the quality of soils.

An improvement in the quality of soil will be enough proof of the effectiveness of the conservation initiative. Another way of measuring the effectiveness of this campaign will be by determining the amount of discharge of harmful untreated industrial effluent into rivers or other inappropriate places. In addition, the rate of new infections and deaths resulting from pollution activities will be determined to find out if there has been a significant improvement. Conducting a public survey to find out the satisfaction rate among the people will also be an efficient way of determining the success of the program.

References

Filatotchev, I & Nakajima, C 2014, ‘Corporate Governance, Responsible Managerial Behaviour, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Organisational Efficiency versus Organisational Legitimacy?’, Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 28 no. 3, pp. 289-306.

Guo, Y, Li, S, Tian, Z, Pan, X, Zhang, J & Williams, G 2013, ‘The Burden of Air Pollution on Years of Life Lost in Beijing, China, 2004-08: Retrospective Regression Analysis of Daily Deaths’, BMJ, vol. 349 no. 1, pp. F7139-F7139.

Hillary, S 2014, ‘Decentralisation and Environmental Quality: An International Analysis of Water Pollution Levels and Variation’, Land Economics, vol. 90 no. 1, pp. 114-130.

Ivanova, M 2012, ‘Institutional design and UNEP reform: Historical insights on form, function and financing’, International Affairs, vol. 88 no. 3, pp. 565-584.

Laran, J & Tsiros, M 2013, ‘An Investigation of the Effectiveness of Uncertainty in Marketing Promotions Involving Free Gifts’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 77 no. 2, pp. 112-123.

Okuda, S 2011, ‘Environmental pollution problems in the world. Present status of environmental pollution and pollution control in China’, Journal of Environmental Conservation Engineering, vol. 12 no. 5, pp. 756-759.

Wilcox, D & Ault, P 2003, Public relations: Strategies and tactics, Harper & Row, New York, NY.

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