The Middle East and North African region have 20 million hearing and speech individuals. While most initiatives revolve around helping them directly, no action has ever been taken to make the society around them more inclusive. Sign language helps them communicate with each other, but speaking to someone who doesn't know sign language (which is most people) makes leading a normal life rather difficult. TikTok wanted to give back to the wider community and engage with celebrities for the greater good. We made use of the popularity of challenges on TikTok to create a unique one that taught people the basics of sign language. The core objective was to highlight TikTok as an inclusive platform for all, raise awareness on sign language and try to make it a part of school syllabi across the region.

#CreateForGood is a TikTok challenge that taught people the basics of sign language. Enabling everyone to communicate with 20 million hearing and speech impaired individuals across the MENA region. Like most TikTok challenges, we created a song with everyday phrases that translated into sign language. Each person that took the challenge enacted the song's lyrics in sign language instead of actually singing the song.

Sign language is the only way to communicate for 20 million hearing and speech impaired individuals across the MENA region. And in most instances, people do not understand or know basic sign language. Challenges are also extremely popular on TikTok and the region has one of the highest smartphone penetration in the world. So we decided to create a unique challenge that became a social media movement. #CreateForGood is a TikTok challenge that taught people the basics of sign language. With the support of Red Crescent, we took things further and created a petition to introduce sign language as an elective subject in school syllabi across the region. Every video uploaded on TikTok using #CreateForGood automatically counted as a signature on Red Crescent's petition.

Over a month we created and uploaded the challenge on TikTok using #CreateForGood for all TikTok users across the region.

Step 1:

Like every TikTok challenge, we created a unique song with everyday phrases such as "Good Morning", "Good Evening", "Have A Happy Day", "Don’t Worry", "What Is Your Name?", "How Are You?", "How Can I Help You?", "Thank You", "Thank You Very Much".

Step 2:

Sign language experts translated the lyrics into sign language which people created videos, learning sign language instead of just singing along.

Step 3:

Regional celebrities kicked things off and invited everyone to participate. Every TikTok user who did the challenge using #CreateForGood, was taught the basics of sign language. Giving them the ability to understand and interact with hearing and speech impaired individuals.

With Red Crescent’s support, every video uploaded became a signature on a petition to introduce sign language as a school subject.

130 Million Views

118 Million Reach

33 Million Exposure

28000 New App Downloads

10000 Videos Uploaded In 2 Days

10000 Signatures On Red Crescent's Petition

Taught The Basics Of Sign Language To Every Person That Did The Challenge

Became A Social Media Movement With The Participation Of Top Celebrities