Understanding the structure of Countries, Cities, Initiatives and Events

It is possible that there is some confusion to understand how to raise our work according to the structure of Countries, City and Initiatives of the web, so I will try to explain what this whole story consists of

Basic Structure of the Initiatives

The Initiatives section is subdivided as follows:

Top Level: Continents
|
-> Countries
|
-> Cities
|
-> Initiatives

The Initiatives hang from the cities, if they are local, but they also hang from the countries, if they are national. They do not hang from the continents because there are no such big initiatives. An initiative can also hang from 1 or more countries, 1 or more cities. For example: The “Mediterranean Sea of ​​Peace” initiative could hang from:

1. Countries: Italy, France and Spain
2. Cities: Barcelona (Spain), Genoa (Italy), Marseille (France)

Therefore the initiative would be associated with 3 countries and 3 cities. Generally, if it is only the cities that participate, and not at the national level, the right thing would be to associate the initiatives only at the city level, not at the country level. That an initiative is associated at the country level means that anyone from anywhere in the country could participate. But in this case, it is unlikely that a person from Extremadura will participate, and therefore, the most logical thing would be to associate this initiative only at the city level.

What exactly is an initiative?

This is possibly what causes the most confusion. An initiative is synonymous with a project. Any project that you want to carry out is an initiative. The structure could have been called "projects of the march" interchangeably. Anyway: What is a project or initiative?

A project or initiative is a plan that we intend to carry out. For example, a group in Medellín meets with the aim of creating a project for the World March. The project will be called: «Awareness raising in schools in the nonviolence region«. This group called: «Medellinians for nonviolence» would be the promoter group of this initiative.

But suddenly, another group from the region called «Team active for peace» joins this initiative, being then two collaborating teams in this initiative.

Now these two teams are beginning to send e-mails to the different schools, with the aim of getting them to sign up to do one or more activities within the context of this project or initiative: «Awareness raising in schools in the nonviolence region«. A school called: «Antares Medellin School» decides to do a concert with the school band and dedicate a few words to nonviolence on November 12 at 9:00.

The school “Colegio Antares Medellín” would be an adhering participant.

And the concert would be the first "Event" of the Initiative. Let's call him "Concert for the non-violence of the Antares School«.

It turns out that the concert is a complete success, with the local press and 500 attendees. And we make a news on the web called: «La Marcha attends the fabulous concert for nonviolence in Medellín«. This would be news associated with the initiative.

So, as we can see, an initiative or project is a generator of opportunities, a way to group participants and also a way to show people collaborators.

In addition and as a culmination of an initiative, it is possible to have a form within that initiative, with the aim that if for example, we want to show the web to the schools of Medellín and that they sign up with an enrollment form, they also do it.

In order to better understand what an initiative is like, I better give an example of the web: https://theworldmarch.org/iniciativas/italia/escuelas-italia/

In addition, how could it be otherwise, this initiative, very focused on the city of Medellin, will appear at the City level. Although in Colombia, in this case, there is not much activity at the city level and it is preferred to do everything at the national level, as it would appear exclusively in the country section of Colombia.

An example at the City level: https://theworldmarch.org/region/espana/coruna/

An example at Country level: https://theworldmarch.org/region/espana/

How to create new initiatives?

In principle, my idea was to have forms on the web, to simply fill in and upload directly. The problem is that this is very expensive in terms of time, and first I want to see if there is a lot of activity or not. If there are going to be 10 initiatives a week, then it's not worth it. If we see that the figure goes up, then something will be done to try to save some time in this regard.

But for now the system we are going to follow is the following to create an initiative:

I created the following template in Google Docs:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NpG2x15L_M59uF_JbXwxBNVKhQvcCR7fPuZ2YT8J47E/edit?usp=sharing

Simply make a copy, fill in the information and send me the link to the template filled in. If you do not know how to make the copy, then you write to me and I make it to you and I send it to you. Query emails send them to: info@theworldmarch.org

Brief explanation of how to fill in the INITIATIVES template

I will explain how the template is filled, following the example in the previous section:

1. Initiative Name: Awareness raising in schools in the nonviolence region
2. Text with the description of the initiative: Here you have to explain what the story is about. Example: Our objective is to create awareness among the citizens of Medellin about the importance of living a nonviolent life from the earliest age, and for this we will promote a series of activities that serve to meet this goal, especially aimed at schools that have been the ones more interest have shown in this initiative.
3. Adhesion Form: If we have a Google Form for schools to adhere, then the link to the Google Form in question. Example: https://forms.gle/31qsXpCgAK1sz58M9
4. Associated material: In this case, if for example we have a PDF brochure or a JPG poster, we would put
   4a) File: A link by Dropbox to the file
   4 B) File Name: Training pamphlet for the initiative
5. Promoting Organizations: In this case we had said there were two:
   5a) 1 Organization:
   Name: Medellinenses for nonviolence
   Logo: Link to the logo in IMGUR
   Direction URL: http://medellinenesnoviolentos.com
   5b) 2 Organization:
   Name: Team active for peace
   Logo: Link to the logo in IMGUR
   Direction URL: http://equipoactivoporlapaz.com.co
6. Prominent Participants: In this case we would put the participating schools
   6a) Participant 1:
   Participant Name: Antares Medellín School
   Logo: Link to the shield in IMGUR of the school
   Url address: https://www.colegioantares.edu.co/
   Country: Colombia
   Accession text: A text that the accession school has passed us, or a description of the school. Example: «The Antares school, located in the Robledo area, is pleased to participate in the activities promoted by the World March with this message: «It is important to promote peace from a very young age for a more prosperous world»
   Adhesion video: This is optional, the same is a video or not. In this case, if there is no video, it is left empty
7. Associated Events: Most likely, when we create the initiative, there are still no scheduled events. But in case there are, then we move on to the next section for creating Events. In this section you simply have to give me the name of the Events that you have created in the Events template.
   Example:
   – “Concert for the non-violence of the Antares School”
   – “Human symbol for the Colegio San Jose de la Salle”

Brief explanation of how to fill in the EVENTS template

Whether we have stayed in the previous point number 7 or if we want to create an event from 0, we have to follow the event creation template that is the following:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vJ5RKWzso6bFHOkk9Go5MIv8XOkLE6WcbxC_Yp8PRxU/edit?usp=sharing

As with the Initiatives creation template, we can make a copy of the template and pass it to me or ask me to give you a copy if you don't know how to do it.

I will explain how this template is filled, following the example of the previous event of the concert:

1. Name of the event: Concert for the non-violence of the Antares School
2. Description of the event: «The Antares school is pleased to make the school band available to invite everyone to participate in a concert that promotes the spirit of peace and nonviolence to all attendees, as well as the school director, Federico Garcia , lends itself to give a speech to raise awareness about nonviolence and the founder of the Medellinenses association for nonviolence will also give a few words»
3. Event Start Date: 12 / 11 / 2019
4. Event Start Time: 9: 00
5. End Date of the Event: 12 / 11 / 2019
6. End Time of the Event: 12: 00
7. Featured Image of the Event: For example, a link to IMGUR in which a nice panoramic view of the school from the sky appears, important measures 960 × 540 pixels.
8. Event location:
   Event Place Name: Antares College
   Event City: Medellin
   Event Address: 88a road, 68-135
   Zip Code: Does not apply
   Event Province: Antioch
9. Event organizers:
   9a) 1 Organizer
   Organizing Name: Team active for peace
   Organizer Phone: + 5744442685
   E-Mail Organizer: francisco@equipoactivoporlapaz.com.co
   Image with Organizer Logo: Link to the logo in IMGUR
   Organizer URL: http://equipoactivoporlapaz.com.co
   9b) 2 Organizer
   Organizing Name: Fernando Tejares
   Organizer Phone: + 5744785647
   E-Mail Organizer: fernando.tejares@gmail.com
   Image with Organizer Logo: Link Optional to Fernando's photo at IMGUR
   Organizer URL: This person has no URL

FAQs

What is the difference between an initiative and an event?

An initiative or a project is something that is part of a larger plan. That is to say: for example «Mediterranean Sea of ​​Peace» would be an initiative.

But if within the “Mediterranean Sea of ​​Peace” initiative you come to Barcelona and hold a talk in Barcelona, ​​then that talk is called: «Proclamation for peace in Barcelona» would be an event WITHIN the “Mediterranean Sea of ​​Peace” initiative.

It must be clear that one initiative can have 1 only one event or several

But here I will explain something that generates the greatest confusion: An event can be presented on the web, in an isolated way, associated with a city, or jointly with an initiative.

This means that NOT EVERY EVENT has to have an associated initiative.

Example: If on December 12, 2019, there is going to be a concert in Buenos Aires for Peace, but an initiative has not been proposed, it has simply arisen spontaneously, then within the city of Buenos Aires, or at the Argentine country level, we would put : «Concert in Buenos Aires for Peace» as EVENT.

On the other hand, if we want to organize an organization plan, with a series of activities, collaborators, organizers, etc, etc, in Buenos Aires, in relation to a larger plan, for example: «Dissemination of the message of peace in Buenos Aires", then this would be an initiative, and the "Concert in Buenos Aires for Peace» would be a framed event, within this initiative.

Conclusion: An initiative can have 1 or several events, but not all events have to have an associated initiative.

I am not very good at the subject of graphic design and put the images following the instructions

There is a very simple online program that allows you to edit photos:
https://www.befunky.com/es/crear/editor-de-fotos/

1. Here the photo opens and loads:
   
2. The size is changed to fit the size I request.
   For example, if we have an image of 1500 x 800, and we want to put it in 960 x 540, then we make Resize (resize), to the height and it would be: 1012 x 540px
   
3. Then you have to crop the image to fit 960 x 540, that is, we trim the width of 1012 to 960
   
4. And finally we save here (in PNG or JPG no matter) and upload the image to IMGUR: https://imgur.com/upload
   

If still following these steps you still find it very complex, find someone to help you with these things because it is the minimum that a website needs.

How many initiatives can there be per Country and City?

There is not limit. In fact an initiative can be shared by several cities and several countries at the same time, as is the case of the Mediterranean of Peace

Can I have a nice URL to put in my pamphlets?

If possible. The URLs are usually a bit long as we have seen before, and this can make it difficult to write them in a pamphlet to hand out on the street.

If you contact us at info@theworldmarch.org, we can put a more colorful URL.

For example, if your initiative is to contact Schools in Medellín, we can put something like https://theworldmarch.org/escuelasmedellin and so people will enter more easily

The same applies to cities: If you want to put for example http://theworldmarch.org/medellin to enter directly to the side of the city of Medellin it is put.

How can I upload new initiatives or events to the web?

Simply send us all the information following the templates according to the example to info@theworldmarch.org

I have more doubts, where can I ask?

Ask your questions at info@theworldmarch.org

The answers to these questions will be put in this list of frequently asked questions.