Celebrating Atma Connect: 7 million people, 5 Years of Impact

Our April newsletter is filled with a lot to celebrate! 

Thank you for your continued support of Atma Connect. Today we are excited to share with you what we have been working on over the past few months and celebrate the incredible impact we have collectively achieved!

Atma Connect’s Impact 

Our team created a video to highlight our incredible impact in communities across the world:

Happy 5 Years of Atma

On April 7, 2021 Atma Connect celebrated the 5 year anniversary of our incorporation with a social media campaign #5YearsofAtma. Inspiring members in our community from across the world posted on social media to share what Atma Connect means to them:

The past five years have been transformative 

We have reached over 7 million people from Indonesia to Puerto Rico, and have measurably improved lives, communities, and the environment — by offering life-saving disaster alerts, neighbor to neighbor support, job and volunteering opportunities, and more. 

“After the disaster, AtmaGo helped us with our recovery efforts so we were able to get back on our feet through helping each other. For example, we held a campaign to clean up the neighborhood and plant trees together.” – Fajar, Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami survivor

And, our inspirational team at Atma Connect has helped facilitate and shine a light on the brilliance that exists in every community.

“Before working with Atma, I knew that there were community-oriented efforts on the island. However, whenever I saw a problem or a difficult situation, I believed that these efforts held no power and that they could not address the needs of our people. 

With Atma, I began to look deeper into my island and my people, because I was bringing them a tool that would help them connect with their neighbors and multiply their community efforts. That was when I learned that my communities not only have voices, but they also have the power to impact the lives around them. Atma Connect has helped me reconnect with my people.  – Erika, Puerto Rico Program Associate, Atma Connect

With your support, we have built an amazing community of leaders, thinkers, and supporters who believe in the power of citizen journalism to strengthen civil society, the ability of neighbors helping neighbors to build resilience, and the importance of connection. 

“What Atma has shown the world is that when we let the people who are the most affected, and who are the least heard, lead the way — they will lead us to the more connected, equitable, resilient world we’ve been waiting for. They’ve demonstrated this, and at scale.” – Meena Palaniappan, Founder and CEO at Atma Connect

So yes, the last five years have been systems-changing and we can’t wait to share the mountains we will move together in the next five years 🙂 !

Community Leaders Event

On Saturday, April 1th, 2021, Atma Connect held a one-day webinar with 30 community leaders from various locations in Indonesia. Our community leaders included village literacy activists, public policy activists, women’s empowerment caseworkers, arts and culture conservationists, and environmental activists. We empowered these leaders with skills and tools to expand their effectiveness as agents of change in their neighborhood and communities. 

Topics covered in the webinar included:

1. How to handle gender-based violence cases with Mrs. Lely Zailani, the Director of HAPSARI (the Association of Indonesian Women’s Union).
2. What advocacy techniques were effective in getting the attention of policy makers to better address community needs from Widi Heriyanto.
3. A presentation on the AtmaGo application and testing the new Community Room feature delivered by Silvia Yulianti and Aisyah Gunung from our Atma Connect Team.

“In our area, the community of art and culture studios do not get enough attention from the government. Many studios are abandoned due to a lack of financial support (from the government). I believe the material on ‘advocacy techniques to reach policy makers’ taught in this webinar including the examples of best practices will be effective in helping us communicate with the right stakeholders to succeed in our campaigns.” – Zulkarna, webinar participant and chairman of the Community of Teacher Artists (KOSERU) of Central Lombok Regency

“It was very nice to be able to share my experience with other community leaders. Kudos to Atma Connect and its AtmaGo platform because it embraces the general public and encourages grassroots movements. AtmaGo has made itself a vehicle for interaction and learning between neighbors in very unique and effective ways.” – Widi Heriyanto, webinar presenter.

Designing A Better Future: AtmaGo Product Updates

Over the past 6 months, Atma Connect has worked to reimagine the AtmaGo app to better serve the needs and goals of our users. 

New features launched in 2021

• The community feature was launched as a beta in March 2021. Designed to meet key needs of community leaders that are not being met through services like Facebook groups. What makes this feature uniquely valuable is that community pages allow community leaders and organizations to track and document their impact. This will enable funding, resources, and community support to flow to the project, inspire other leaders and communities about what can be achieved, and allow this impact to be aggregated at scale. The community feature allows leaders to add new members to community groups, create an event, and attract new attention and volunteers to their causes. Future revisions of the community feature will allow group leaders to monitor their community growth. 
• 

“AtmaGo’s new homepage is fresh and easy to navigate when you want specific information. The app is very user friendly!” – Danardono, AtmaGo user.

• A new video feature on the homepage is currently being tested and is designed to increase engagement rates.

“The new homepage is very attractive now and rich in features! Visitors will be impressed!” – Rizky Febriansyah, AtmaGo user.

• Our new topic feature launched in February, 2021 allows users to filter their feeds and find the topics that are most relevant to them.

“The addition of topics on Atmago is great. It allows me to search for the specific topics I am interested in!” – Fadly Biluping, North Luwu, AtmaGo user

“The topics feature on AtmaGo allows me to easily select the information I need the most. This could be especially useful in the event of a disaster.” – Arsono, Brebes Central Java, AtmaGo user

Wishing everyone a Happy Ramadan, Happy Earth Day, and a wonderful month ahead!