#Dominica November 3, 2017

On September 18, 2017, my island of Dominica was devastated by category five hurricane Maria which left scores of people homeless, missing and many dead. The entire island was cut off from the rest of the world, and the only means of access to the island was by boat. What used to be the nature island of the Caribbean was no more. Hurricane Maria took away everything that people on the island worked so hard for.

On November 3rd, Dominica would celebrate its 39 years of Independence which is a very festive season in Dominica. However, due to the passage and destruction of hurricane Maria, the festive season had to be called off.
The next social media campaign initially planned for May 16, 2018, would be the one-year anniversary of our campaign. However, we received many requests online about the next #Dominica campaign. We were aware that people on the island were trying to put things back together and nearly everyone on the island were without electricity. But we decided to go ahead with the #Dominica social media campaign on November 3, 2017.

The primary aim of this campaign was geared at giving Dominicans in Dominica a little hope and something to look forward to during their tough time and to get the rest of the Caribbean and the world to rally around Dominica to celebrate its 39 years of Independence. One of the biggest differences between both campaings is that on our team conceptualized and developed an independence logo and theme.

Leading up to November 3, our team published numerous post, promotional videos and fliers on social media to sensitize the public and to create excitement. A few live radio interviews were carried out, and some press releases were sent to online newspapers.

On the day of the campaign, we could feel the energy and excitement through the comments and the images posted on social media. Although access to the internet was limited, many Dominicans in Dominica ensured that they got Wi-Fi access to post on that day. Digicel Dominica, one of the largest telecommunications companies on the island of Dominica showed their support to our campaign by participating in a contest whereby providing phone credits to the person with the ones likes and shares on any single post.
Hashtag Dominica second social media campaign was as successful as we would hope. Although we did not trend on social media, we knew that we did exactly what we set out to do.

Below are a few photos that we posted leading up to November 3, 2017. Also, see a link to the website, the the Facebook page and two promo video. One done by Norris Francois