Habitat for Humanity

Project

Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry that seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.  It has built more than 200,000 houses around the world, providing over 1 million people in more than 3,000 communities with safe, decent, affordable shelter.  A key project is the Jimmy Carter Work Project during which Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter give a week of their time to build homes and raise awareness of the critical need for affordable housing.

Objectives

RFA was responsible for media relations in Asia Pacific excluding India.   At the outset, the consultancy worked with HFH Asia Pacific’s communications director to identify and prioritise the target countries and define the scope of work.

The media strategy proposed by RFA and agreed to by the client was to target the key English language publications in each target country as well as key regional and international media in the region.  To implement this, the consultancy developed media profiles for each HFH office, identified media opportunities, and worked with the appropriate HFH offices and country directors on media interviews in country and with their volunteers in India at the JCWP.

RFA was an integral part of the JCWP media team at the work site, securing the interest of key Asia Pacific media, e.g. the South China Morning Post and Channel NewsAsia, to visit the site and working with the international media who visited the site e.g. the Times of London. RFA also managed the agency partnership for HFH International with the India PR agency including the contract, invoicing and reporting.

The result of the combined media effort in Asia Pacific was 555 stories, 104 of which were in media in the region, excluding India.