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Ahsan Mashhood | Karachi, Pakistan
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Kleaner Karachi: TikTok Challenge to Empower Schools to Clean Coast of Karachi
Given the recent national surge of TikTok in Pakistan, especially among students, Ahsan Mashhood's solution capitalizes on digital outreach via social media (i.e., TikTok) to launch a campaign called "Kleaner Karachi" in collaboration with school communities (ages 14+). The idea is to host a TikTok Challenge with prize money for students from 20 schools and provide exceptional recognition for the winning schools. The goal of the TikTok campaign is to make beach cleanups and other marine-focused youth-led initiatives go viral as a way to increase youth knowledge about marine pollution and its consequences. Ahsan's plan would also involve partnering with Karachi TikTok celebrities to promote the campaign. For the challenge itself, Ahsan would reach out to school communities that are most devastated by coastal pollution. Once the challenge has been completed, Ahsan would use the submissions as data to analyze the campaign's impact—this involves conducting participant observation, digital ethnography, and conducting focus groups to gain a rich understanding of marine debris in the Northern Arabian Sea.