Twaah— Tweee– I know it’s a mouthful, right? But since I first heard about Twestival, I have loved the concept. For those unfamiliar, here’s a look at the background and structure of what makes this twitter-festival exceptional.

The History of Twestival

The idea is simple:

Tweet. Meet. Give.

Twestival gives people an event where they can not only meet other twitter users, but also be a part of a global awareness and fundraising campaign. The first one took place on February 12th, 2009 in over 200 cities. The global campaign raised $250,000 for charity: water. But, that’s not the astounding number– try 55 newly drilled wells and 17,000 people reached with fresh water!

Modeling and Replicating Change

Twestival is providing a framework for you to be one of the many pieces in a global movement for change. In this movement fewer people are asking why they should participate and are instead concerned about HOW they can contribute. Leaders have to be responsible for stepping up and answering the call of the multitude who want to play a role in change making, but may not be sure how.

Twestival is back with an event to raise funds for a local cause in each city. This September 10th-13th, Twestival gives would-be change makers an outlet by providing the knowledge and guidance whereby they can create change in their own communities. For Twestival Local, organizers have been equipped with a more powerful toolkit for organizing their events and challenged to set and meet fundraising goals. Furthermore, teams in the various cities must work together with interested people in their location, using twitter as a crowd sourcing tool to select a cause, solicit help, and begin fundraising. All of this is done with a big community of individuals ready to support people as they face challenges. The result is the equivalent of a global crash course in DIY Philanthropy!

Igniting A Unique Age

The reality of the global village is that many of us are finding ourselves unwilling to settle for being over entertained and under challenged. We need to be empowered to see ourselves as change makers. We’re hungry for change and feeding off messages of hope through collective action.

“We now have the capacity to organize and take collective action together to deal with a problem or an injustice… this makes this a unique age in human history…“ ~British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Events like twestival are igniting this unique age to action by helping us realize our ability to play small parts in bringing big solutions.

We’re powerful. Believe it. See it.

I will be a part of the team organizing Twestival Local in Bangkok. Equipping people with the means to create change here is exactly what In Search of Sanuk has been striving to do. I’m thrilled to see this happening on the global stage and eager to celebrate the change we’ve been initiating with our Bangkok Tweetups in unison with calls for change around the world.

~Dwight

Shortly after getting settled in with friends in Bali, I headed down to a local shop and spent about $25 US buying gifts for kids in one of the poorer urban areas of Denpasar. That’s about what you may normally spend for a night out.

For the price of dinner and drinks, I bought party favorites like balloons and noisemakers, mixing them in with the store’s entire rack of kiddy toothbrushes. What great value! Of course, they didn’t last long and the group of kids and moms grew and grew.

This is just a peek at what’s to come (See more pictures on flickr). We’re making plans to do more activities like this, thanks to your great input. Also, we’ll be sharing info on the great organizations we were able to visit while in Bali. Happy Friday and keep brainstorming small ways you can make a big difference in your community.

“Dream big, work smart, start local.”

~Dwight (@insearchofsanuk)

From Twestival giving hard to reach places fresh water, to the use of the site Alex Brown Racing to push the cause of the welfare of horses (I’ve posted an interview with Alex below) there are countless examples of the ways great causes have now found a renewed voice online. And you don’t have to take my word for it because Mashable has already crunched the numbers.

Do you have a cause yet? What project are you working on? Are you using social media to get people interested? Are you following change makers on twitter? I’d be glad to recommend a few:

1 @TannersDad A dad fighting for the truth about autism
2 @Causecast Site where you can get connected quickly
3 @Perthtones A guy with a soft spot for refugees
4 @Wine_to_water Wine to water project
5 Link: Twit-face, The house that twitter and facebook built.

This list could go on for days, but I will instead limit it to five causes and depend you to look back at the previous follow friday posts for more great people. Don’t forget the Alex Brown video below.

Take some great tips from Alex Brown and use them as examples of how to grow your cause. ~Dwight