Start changing the world with Good Karma

MANILA, Philippines – In a time of hashtags, trending, likes, and other social media tropes and mechanisms, information has become so easily shared throughout the world. With the click of a button, anything anywhere can go viral in a matter of seconds.

With this, the idea of Good Karma came to life.

With technology and social networking now so embedded in the average person’s – especially the youth’s – lifestyle, what better way to spread a message than taking on this ‘viral’ endemic?

The idea behind Good Karma was to create a project that would send a message that was tangibly viral, with the medium eventually thought up to be multi-colored Good Karma shirts, and the theme that little contributions can create big impacts in society. 

We at the UP Industrial Engineering Club (IE Club) know that there is no shortage of well-meaning charities around the country with their own remarkable causes and experiences, but rather a lack of funding. Thus, we began producing and selling an assortment of Good Karma shirts, with all proceeds from the sales going to their corresponding charity or organization.

The response has been overwhelming: in just two years, over P 120,000 have been raised, thousands of Facebook likes and shares have been attained, hundreds of shirts have been sold, and numerous outreaches have been held in Good Karma’s name.

‘Tough journey

The Good Karma endeavor though has not always been easy.

With a project like this, there are only limited ways to create an image. We designed the Good Karma logo to allow brand recognition to flow from the logo’s simplicity and minimalism, and the shirts to vary only in color. With these choices, however, came some design challenges – there’s only so much you can do with a few colors and the same graphic.

That makes finding ways to “jazz up” the Good Karma brand a constant struggle, especially in today’s age where trends come and go in a blink of an eye and the novelty of the original shirts having slightly worn off after having been on sale for two years. Limited edition designs that deviate slightly from the basic shirt are occasionally released to respond to causes that are not necessarily permanent in nature, like a yellow “Relief PH” shirt released in both 2012 and 2013 to assist the aid efforts for typhoon and flood victims.

But the simplicity also allows the shirt-bearers to feel like they’re a part of a movement bigger than themselves any time they wear the shirt to school or work. In our organization for example, it’s very rare to pass by our tambayan and not see someone with a Good Karma shirt on, and the happy coincidences of a few people wearing similarly colored shirts have them come together come for pictures and documentation.

We have yet broken out from the boundaries of our home college, the College of Engineering, and our university to reach an even greater audience. This has been a huge challenge for us because of both our non-profit nature, giving us very limited resources to advertise with, and the relatively small and overlapping reach our members, who are mostly engineering undergraduates, have. But these limitations have really been silent encouragements for us to continue to build relationships with other organizations and people in general; viruses and movements can’t spread if there’s no one there for them to spread to.

And Good Karma is first and foremost a movement – it is a push for the youth in the direction of social responsibility, not a pat on the back for a job well done for buying a shirt. We don’t want our shirts to just be the inspirations, but to transform those that wear them into ones. That anyone who wears one isn’t satisfied with using the shirt as an agent for change, but become one through their daily actions.

We don’t want this to be just a shirt you bought, or money you passively donated. We also want to be a bridge that binds our patrons and our beneficiaries. We want to raise awareness, especially in the youth, and we want to keep our causes, beneficiaries, and patrons all connected. We try to find ways to keep the people informed and updated with ways they can help their chosen causes through both collaborative events and interaction online.

There are many ways to help save the world, and they don’t always have to be great leaps in order to make a difference. With Good Karma, it may begin with a shirt, but we hope that it does not just end there. It is Good Karma’s highest objective to deliver the infectious message to all youth that a little is a lot, and that even one shirt can save a country.

We aim to imbibe in each life that we are able to reach the message of spreading the change, spreading the love, and spreading the good karma. This is a message that we will everyday fight to keep alive, a message that we will live by in hopes to bring change, one shirt at a time. – Rappler.com 

Benjo Buensuceso is an engineering student in the University of the Philippines Diliman, and one of two project managers for Good Karma of the Industrial Engineering Club.

Carla Francisco is an architecture student in the University of the Philippines Diliman, and one of the two project managers for Good Karma of the Industrial Engineering Club.