In the most dangerous country in the world for environmental and human rights activists, the government did not seem to care about the systematic killing of activists and was doing nothing to prevent it.

Through a suggestive social media campaign, we incited and empowered people with a powerful call to action: "Tweet politicians to wake up and do something for human rights and environmental activists".

According to the NGO Front Line Defenders, Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for human rights and environmental activists. In fact, between 2016 and 2020, more than 971 activists have been assassinated. Despite these outrageous figures, the Colombian government has not been effective in responding to this crisis.

Despite Amnesty International being a global movement that works for the fulfillment of human rights in more than 160 countries, the Colombian government has refused to meet and engage in dialogue with the organization. For this reason, a creative campaign, powerful enough to be launched without the need for any investment was necessary. A campaign that would generate social pressure on the government requesting the protection of Jani Silva, a symbol of the struggle of social and environmental activists within Colombia.

Amnesty International Colombia launched a provoking campaign inviting people to wake those politicians up, tweeting directly to their accounts to demand the protection of the activists. We turned Twitter into an alarm that would not stop ringing until @rovillalba, @joseobdulio and hundreds of other politicians understand that while they are sleeping, many of our leaders will never wake up again.

Our audience was an international audience of people sensitive to the Colombian armed conflict. According to the Global Web Index (2020, Q1, Colombia, Mexico, Norway, Holland, Canada, Spain, and Belgium), 39% of people claim to be highly sensitive to social problems, stating that it is very important for them to contribute to their community. 38.2% and 40.1% affirm that it is very important for them to help others.

The success in generating pressure on Congress was down to the audience’s strategic participation through tweets and signatures on social networks. The aim was to apply pressure on Congress to put an end to the serious abuses against the physical integrity of human and environmental rights activists, starting with the symbol of this struggle in Colombia, Jani Silva.

Although the scope of this campaign was international, we used social media, especially Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to distribute the message. This led to a landing page with information about Jani Silva and her mission, while highlighting the importance of her safeguarding, not only for the preservation of the cause and community but also to move forward in guaranteeing the safety of all environmental activists across Colombia.

On November 24, 2020, exactly four years to the day that the signing of the peace agreement in Colombia took place, we launched the first elements of the campaign across networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. These social media platforms were used to improve the scope of the campaign and in the profile of Amnesty Americas and Mexico alone, more than 27,043 organic interactions were achieved rapidly.

More than 33,000 signatures were generated requesting the protection of Jani Silva as well as any other human and environmental rights activists within the territory of Colombia (Canada 3,600, Belgium 7,560, Colombia 5,353, Norway 16,933)

Through this campaign, we achieved a change in the government's behavior, from not even having a meeting with Amnesty International to issuing resolution number 00001303/2021 in favor of Jani Silva and the guarantee of her future protection. We know that this is a roadmap going forward for the preservation and safety of human and environmental rights activists across the whole of Colombia.