Be inspired and encourage others
Organising an activity is a great opportunity to gather your family, friends, colleagues and/or community to support a great cause.
Getting started
What’s your aim and goal?
Each World Cancer Day event and activity is unique. For many, it’s all about bringing together the community to raise awareness. For others, the big motivation is to fundraise for a good cause. And for some, it’s all about getting the media talking. However big or small, the one thing in common about World Cancer Day events is that it gets people talking and learning about cancer. Whatever your activity or event, decide what your organisation, community or business wants to achieve.
When?
Make sure your activity is on or around World Cancer Day, 4 February so we can all join in together
Set your target
World Cancer Day activities can take place anywhere – in a lecture hall, in a park, in a shopping mall, on social media – wherever you can get people together.
What’s your passion?
Use your passion to fuel your ideas to mark World Cancer Day. If you love cooking, why not organise a healthy cooking class for friends and colleagues? If you enjoy getting active, organise a fun walk or run for your town or city. If you like to read, invite book clubs to read a book around the topic of cancer and discuss it together on World Cancer Day. If you love technology, host a competition to see how you can create new technologies to make the lives of those living with cancer that much easier.
Who to get involved?
Get as many people as you can to join in – it’s World Cancer Day after all!
- Family, friends & colleagues: anyone you think will be passionate about planning an activity together.
- TV & radio: reach out to your local radio station and ask them to MC your event or ask your local station for free public announcements about your activity.
- Local businesses: check if businesses around you can donate goods and services such as your event venue, catering (make sure it’s healthy), prizes, printing of materials, etc.
- Cancer organisations & charities: ask your local or national cancer organisation for brochures and flyers to hand out at your event.
- Healthy help: reach out to health-related businesses like pharmacies, farmer’s markets, gyms and yoga studios to help you with promotion, sponsorship or activities.
- Helping hands: contact your local community, schools or universities if you need volunteers.
- Represent: Invite your local representative or mayor to make a welcome speech.
- Clubs: whether your book club, supper club, sports club, scouting club or any other club, get them involved too.
Sharing stories
Invite people from all walks of life to share their personal cancer stories.
Whether it’s someone living with cancer, a family member, a caregiver, a medical professional, an advocate, or an ally, every person’s experience with cancer deserves to be heard. This campaign is all about recognising and validating each unique experience, fostering a sense of community and shared purpose among those affected by cancer.
Storytelling workshops
Facilitate workshops that guide participants in writing their cancer stories.
Why not publish them on the website or on social media when you are done?
Open mic nights
Organise open mic events where individuals can share their cancer stories in person.
Story circles
Host small group gatherings where participants share their stories in a circle format,
fostering a sense of community and support
The virtues of going virtual
Physical gatherings may not always be possible. But with technology, creative thinking and some forward planning, you can host an equally engaging and impactful World Cancer Day event online.
Engaging an online audience
Interesting and unique content and good speakers goes a long way to holding the attention of your audience. If you’re hosting a webinar or other virtual workshop, conference or presentation, there are ways to make your online event as engaging as possible.
- Personalise the experience by using video to show the faces of your speakers, your team and attendees.
- Encourage attendees to live tweet/post along during your online event.
- Share questions, relevant links and quotes in the chat or comments section.
- Poll your audience for their feedback and thoughts using voting tools.
- Try virtual breakout rooms for greater, in-depth discussions.
- Collect participants’ input using a shared, online whiteboard feature.
- Offer your audience the chance to ask questions directly to the speaker.
- Aim to start on time so you don’t lose your audience.
Go live with Live Streaming
Live streaming on social media can be an engaging and dynamic way of hosting an online event – and it’s a great opportunity to connect with your community. Major social media platforms offer straightforward, accessible and free ways to stream your event live.
Below is a quick look at the different live stream features across the major social media platforms. These features are frequently updated, so make sure to check the official webpages for the latest guidance.
Facebook Live
Facebook Live has sophisticated features and is a popular choice for live streaming. Some things to keep in mind:
- Facebook allows you to stream for up to 8 hours continuously from both desktop and mobile devices.
- To invite guests from anywhere around the world into your live stream, you’ll need to use the Live With feature.
- Currently only one guest at a time can be invited into the live stream. However, using a video conferencing tool that can live stream to Facebook (such as Zoom) allows multiple guests at the same time.
- With Facebook’s Live Producer, you have the opportunity to embed the live stream on your website, as well as cut and edit your video after live streaming and before posting it to your timeline.
- Facebook Live has also added some helpful features to engage your audience, such as live polls.
Instagram Live
Instagram Live offers a simple and intimate way to live stream to your followers. If you’re looking to do a short Q&A, one-on-one interview, workout, or tutorial etc., it’s a great platform to stream from. Like many of the other social media platforms, Instagram Live allows your audience to interact by adding comments, giving likes and reactions. A few things to keep in mind:
- Instagram allows live streams of up to 4 hours.
- You can only invite up to 3 guests.
- Instagram Live offers the ability to automatically moderate offensive comments, and the option of turning off the comments feature altogether.
- Once your live stream ends, you have the option to save and reshare your live video.
TikTok Live
TikTok LIVE is the place to be for real-time fun, expression, and creativity. Going live on TikTok is relatively straightforward and is a great way to engage your TikTok audience for a longer time period.
- To go LIVE on TikTok, tap the “create” icon to access the LIVE screen. Swipe to LIVE in the navigation, pick an image, and write a title for your stream.
- When you’re ready, press Go LIVE to start your stream. Once LIVE, you can tap the three dots to change a variety of settings. You can flip the camera, add effects, filter comments, and even add moderators (up to 20).
Think Hybrid
Even if you are planning a traditional event, consider streaming all or parts of your event to an even wider audience, particularly if you have to limit your physical audience. Having a mix of both in-person and online components to your event also offers more flexibility. Speakers or special guests may not always be available to travel and attend your event, but they may be willing to speak via a live video stream.
Simple steps to boost your internet speed
A good quality viewing experience relies on a fast, stable upload speed. Here are a few tricks to help reduce the dreaded delays, buffers and freezes:
- Get a wired connection which offers a steadier connection than your normal WIFI connection.
- Disconnect other devices such as computers and laptops from your network that you won’t be using during the live stream.
- Quit all other programmes and applications on your computer that you don’t need.
- Run the latest updates on your computer and software.
Looking for ideas?
- Ask people to share their story of cancer. Whether it's a person living with cancer, a loved one, a medical practitioner, a supporter, or an advocate, they bring valuable insight and humanity to the conversation.
- Live stream Ask Me Anything Q&A with experts.
- Virtual quizzes.
- Online music concerts or book and poetry readings.
- Live workout sessions (e.g. Zumba, Yoga, Tai Chi).
- Virtual behind-the-scenes tour of your research lab or hospital.
- Online tutorial by your staff, employees, volunteers.
- Choose a time that is most convenient to your audience.
- If appropriate, appoint an event host to introduce guests and speakers, moderate times and field questions.
- Make it easy for attendees: to register, to remember it’s happening and to join on the day.
- Make sure presentations are readable on a mobile device.
- Dedicate time to rehearse with all team members, guests and technical staff if you can.
- Test, test, then test some more: check your workflow, audio quality, video quality, lighting quality and backgrounds.
- Host your online event over stable, high speed internet connection.
- Ensure ready access to an electrical power source and backup batteries for all AV equipment, including computers and cameras.
- Have a tech person ready on the day and on hand to troubleshoot any technical issues.
- Digital events don’t need high production to be engaging. If it’s your first time hosting a virtual event, the simpler, the better.a
What next?
Get planning
It’s never too early to get planning. We suggest starting your planning as early as November. You may need plenty of time to engage partners and sponsors, to confirm a venue, to decide who in your planning group is responsible for what, and to plan out your communications and promotion.
Add your activity to the Map of Activities
Show the impact you’re making with your activity and inspire others by adding your event to the Map of Activity.
These are the types of activities you can choose from:
- Activities especially for youth and children
- Advocacy, petitions, and government outreach
- Arts and cultural events (i.e. screening of a film, dance performance, plays)
- Awareness raising public event (i.e. health fair, open house)
- Competitions, contests and challenges
- Conferences, workshops, including panel events, trainings, lectures)
- Counselling and support activities
- Fundraising activities and events
- Landmark Lighting
- March, rally, or festival
- Online event, social media event, campaign launch
- Press and media conference
- Prevention and early detection activities (i.e. free screenings)
- Publication, report, book launch
- Spiritual and prayer service, memorial service
- Sport and physical activities (sport tournaments, zumba class, etc)
- Stories and experiences
Spread the word
Take advantage of all the materials provided on the World Cancer Day website, including posters, social media banners, logos and branding resources.
Hashtag it
Don’t forget to use the official hashtags #WorldCancerDay and #UnitedByUnique in all your communications on social media.
Need some more inspiration?
See what supporters are doing for World Cancer Day