During the height of the pandemic in early 2021, the Cambodian government and collaborative NGOs introduced several COVID-19 awareness campaigns, but none were directly targeting garment workers.
To better engage garment workers directly during the COVID-19 pandemic, Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) launched a behaviour change campaign
“Susu” – “Together we can make it” that ran from July to October 2021. The campaign utilized both human-centered and data-driven methodology to collect insights through research, and it focused heavily on mobile-first approach for both content and surveys. The team also performed ongoing performance analysis to make sure they were reach the targeted worker audiences.
This campaign was implemented to offer not just insights and guidance for good safety and health practices for COVID-19 prevention, but also to share positive messaging to help workers’ mental and emotional well-being. The overwhelming response to the campaign, which reached over 2 million workers, showed the BFC team that social media campaigns can have a real impact on behavior and attitudes.
Featuring Facebook live sessions with the World Health Organisation (WHO), engaging content and human-centered stories directly from the workers themselves, the campaign reached over two million people on Facebook and generated almost 2.5 million unique engagements via BFC’s Facebook page alone. Some 70% of people who saw the campaign or joined the BFC digital community reported that they felt part of the workers’ community.
Hearing directly from the workers was necessary. A survey on 348 workers (via SMS and social media) from over 130 factories, focus group discussions and onsite interviews were conducted to understand further their concerns and what could trigger behavioural change.
The Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MoLVT) of Cambodia and the World Health Organization (WHO) were consulted during the concept phase of the campaign. At the same time, two factories and 15 workers were directly involved in creating the contents.