The Dream Hashtag!! Al Fakhoora Student’s Trigger Social Campaign for Al Nakba
On May 15th, 2014, a group of 25 Al Fakhoora Dynamic Future’s Student’s launched a collective social media campaign to unleash people’s dreams on “What if Nakba did not happen”. According to the team “The aim was to increase global awareness on Nakba.”
Hassan Moustafa, an Al Azhar University Medicine Student, said that, “The idea was to trigger national nostalgia by dreaming what would happen today, or what would people do today if there was no Nakba.”
Launched on Twitter on Tuesday the 15th of May at 6.00 pm GMT, within minutes, the numbers of timeline views reached about 500.000. In 24 hours, the total numbers of tweets using the hashtag reached 6,323 with 1 million timelines views. “A very inspiring result, we will break the two million mark in the coming few days. ” Hassan said.
Esra Saber, a Pharmacy student at Al Zhar University said that “No emotional word can describe the mixture of happiness, hope, optimism and unlimited inspiration to go on for advocating for our right to return.”
She added “Reaching a huge number of people with our hashtag and allowing people to dream and talk with a loud voice about their pains, as well as their hopes, is the main reason for my happiness, nothing has the same taste as when I saw my country together singing for freedom and very simple dreams.”
Talab, an English Literature student, reflected on this achievement saying that, “Undoubtedly, it's an indescribable feeling to reach such a big number of people, to whom a loud voice is strongly given on the topic of the hashtag. My astonishment at the fact that we reached into the minds, souls and hearts of a lot of people, points out my happiness. Empowering and encouraging them to heartily express their existence and hopes, the hashtag's name signifies optimism, inspiration, pleasure, and most significantly, a life. The wanted absence of Nakba isn't a demand or an order; rather a right of having a pure, life worth living. Other than some compassionate words written in Arabic, I hope to aim at writing in English, using videos, as well as some influential and inspiring pictures. Eventually, a bigger number of people can be reached InshAllah.”
