Sightsavers’ Equal World campaign wins Third Sector award

Sightsavers’ disability rights campaign, Equal World, has won the Digital Innovation category in the 2020 Third Sector Awards with its unique campaign petition app.

The app, developed by Sightsavers’ in-house technical team, allowed staff in programme countries to collect signatures for the Equal World petition from people living in areas without internet coverage. Participants signed their name with a finger on a phone or tablet that had the app downloaded. Their information was stored until the petition signature collector returned to an area with coverage, at which point the data was uploaded and available to Sightsavers’ UK-based campaign team.

Tessa Murphy, Sightsavers’ campaign manager, said: “We’re thrilled and proud to have won Third Sector’s Digital Innovation award. The Equal World petition app meant that we could reach people living in remote areas who are traditionally excluded from this type of online activity. We were able to add their voices to our petition calling for the United Nations to uphold disability rights, and present their petition signatures to the Under-Secretary-General Ana Maria Menéndez at UN headquarters in New York.

“Our in-house technical team did a great job in developing the app, and our advocacy advisers and staff in country offices worked tirelessly to collect signatures using the app out in the field in countries from Guinea to Pakistan. All of this helped us achieve our goal of collecting 50,000 petition signatures in support of a more equal world.”

More information and a full list of award winners can be found on the Third Sector website.