Be a #soberman, this New Years Eve
A campaign against drunken driving has found celebrity support
By : samyuktha k.
Update: 2014-12-27 23:10 GMT
Hyderabad: A man passed out next to a commode an images that makes you wonder if you would want to begin your new year this way. And that’s exactly the response that the city campaign called ‘Project Soberman’ wants to elicit ahead of the big New Year’s eve.
Just four days old, the initial social media campaign is already taking off with several local celebs jumping on board to be part of the project that is aimed at getting people to be responsible this New Year.
Besides video messages from singers Sreeram Chandra and Kausalya and bubbly TV artiste Suma, a short film also appeals to the youngsters.
S. Anwar Ahmed, the cinematographer for the short film titled 31st, was also instrumental in the social media campaign. “The initial plan was to raise awareness at the grass-root level, at colleges and streets. But designing the campaign for the Internet was to grab the attention of this generation,” he says.
The founders of the project, Satya Satamraju and Rajesh Zoldeo, meanwhile, say that this is just the beginning and coming year will have a lot more in store. Satya, a 26-year-old entrepreneur with a social consciousness, says, “The initial idea started from a movie that showed the way people suffer due to addictions. It took a few months for the effect to really sink in.
The New Year eve awareness is just the start. For the larger campaign, Project Sober-man will pan out to include an anti-addiction message and not just be limited to alcohol. In 2015, we plan to reach out to students in colleges and youngsters. It may not be practical to stop substance use all together, so we aim at bringing in the idea of responsible behaviour at least.”