SEATTLE, Washington — On May 2020, Jason Derulo released a dance video called #FIGHT4THEPLANETDANCE on TikTok. The video was one way that Jason Derulo partnered with PUBG Mobile to promote the #FIGHT4THEPLANET campaign. The campaign is a social awareness movement designed to mobilize youth to support sustainable environmental policies and to raise funding for the nonprofit organization Global Green. Jason Derulo’s dance video featured him dancing in a sandstorm, which was also included in the new Mad Miramar Update for the PUBG Mobile game. The Mad Miramar Update encourages players to consider the impact their lifestyle has on the earth by challenging them to defeat a giant sandstorm that could become a reality if climate change continues to worsen.
PUBG Mobile and #FIGHT4THEPLANET
This campaign seeks to mobilize PUBG Mobile’s 600 million players and Jason Derulo’s almost 30 million followers on TikTok to act on sustainability practices. This campaign is not the first time that PUBG Mobile has used its gaming platform to make a difference.
In 2019, PUBG Mobile launched the #FIGHT4THEAMAZON campaign, which involved a live gameplay tournament with celebrity couple Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green. Global Green and Green Cross International were able to help indigenous farmers plant 150,000 trees in Brazil as a result of that campaign. In addition to Jason Derulo’s #FIGHT4THEPLANETDANCE, the 2020 #FIGHT4THEPLANET campaign to mobilize gamers was kickstarted with a $100,000 donation from PUBG Mobile to Global Green.
Green Cross International
Global Green is an organization that focuses on building sustainable communities and affordable housing. It is the U.S. affiliate of Green Cross International. Mikhail Gorbachev founded Green Cross International (GCI) in April 1993. The organization was designed to utilize a system similar to that of the Red Cross, but with an emphasis on providing aid to countries experiencing environmental hardships.
GCI provides support in a variety of areas, from healthcare and sanitation to water rights and renewable energy. Although GCl primarily focuses on environmental issues, the work that the organization does directly contributes to the fight against poverty and addresses several root causes of global poverty. Humanitarian organizations cite between nine to 11 root causes of poverty. Of those causes, four are issues GCI works to eliminate.
Access to Clean Water and Water Rights
The first cause of poverty GCI works to eliminate is the inability to access clean water and healthy food. Currently, 850 million people in the world do not have access to clean water. Due to water-related illnesses, one child dies every 20 seconds.
GCI’s project Water for Life and Peace works to provide individuals in impoverished areas with access to clean water through new infrastructure and water rights advocacy. Through the organization’s subcommittee Smart Water for Green Schools, GCI has helped 147,000 people in communities around the world gain access to clean water.
Poverty and Climate Change
Another root cause of global poverty that GCI addresses is climate change. Climate change will push an estimated 100 million people into poverty in the next 10 years. This is because most impoverished communities rely on agriculture as their livelihood and source of food, so when flood, drought or famine occur, communities become even more vulnerable.
GCI has trained over 1,500 people to use compostable farming techniques and equipped a community center in New York with a solar battery system.
Infrastructures and Healthcare Access
A lack of proper infrastructures in communities is the third cause of poverty that GCI works to address. GCI works with nonprofit organizations on the ground to build roads and sanitation systems in impoverished areas.
The final focus of GCI’s anti-poverty efforts is inadequate healthcare. GCI has a social and medical program called SOCMED that helps provide treatment for illnesses that arise due to chemical exposure and contamination. The organization has run therapy camps to help those affected by the Chernobyl disaster and has helped perform orthopedic surgeries for children in Vietnam that had been injured by mines.
Around 11% of the world’s population lives in poverty. By addressing the root causes of poverty, including climate change, lack of clean water, lack of adequate infrastructure and inaccessibility to proper healthcare, that percentage can be reduced. Together PUBG Mobile, Jason Derulo and Global Green are mobilizing gamers to #FIGHT4THEPLANET and defeat poverty.
– Tiara Wilson
Photo: Flickr