Yesterday I gave my first presentation on how to use Facebook. But this was not a traditional social media presentation. My audience had never used Facebook before. Not only had they never used Facebook before, but most of them had never heard of Facebook. Also, they only spoke Spanish. I don’t speak Spanish.

So, needless to say I was in for a bit of a challenge. All week I had been looking forward to going to Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) and presenting social media to community members who make up the National City Community Action Team. I had never met the team members before, but I was familiar with their faces from managing EHC’s communications for the past year-and-a-half.

Due to my excitement and my Type A personality, I was overly prepared. I had an outline of talking points in which I would introduce myself, ask questions, run them through ways they can use Facebook as an organization and as individuals, show them examples from EHC and send them home with an instructional sheet with some tips, reminders, and ways to get set up – all in half an hour.

Within the first two minutes of that meeting, all my prep was out the window. Carolina, a bilingual EHC staff member, translated my words from English to Spanish. I began by asking if anyone had used Facebook before, and when I got one hand, I decided to improvise. Instead of following my outline, we talked about what Facebook is and how it could be used as a tool to complement the grassroots organization they are already doing so well.

The awesome thing about talking to these ladies is that they have been doing so much amazing work in National City over the past few years; from passing a new community plan to removing toxic polluters and making bike lanes, streets, and sidewalks safer for children walking to school. But very few people outside of the Community Action Team know this because they have practically zero web presence.

I explained how to create a Facebook organizational page for the National City CAT team, what to post and how often, who to engage with and follow, and how to like, comment and share – asking them questions the whole while and answering their questions as well.

At one point, I asked them what they would post on their Facebook. No one raised their hands until I encouraged them, and one woman hesitantly offered the touching suggestion:

“Because of Environmental Health Coalition, now I know where asthma comes from.” 

To wrap up our meeting with a real example, I took this photo and posted it on EHC’s Facebook with the caption: “A few of our National City Community Action Team Members!” This made them really happy and surged their excitement to use Facebook once they saw how easy it is. The next morning, I could see one of the CAT members from our meeting had liked and shared the photo, along with 20 other likes and a few comments.

I was very impressed at these women who have gone through so much to create healthy changes in their neighborhood. They have been at it for decades, and have never shied away from a challenge – Facebook would be just another thing they would conquer on the path to #healthyhoods for their children and grandchildren.

I left the meeting with a sense of fulfillment. I had not simply led a social media training, I had given low-income, minority women a tool to enhance all the amazing work they are already doing. Instead of teaching a man to fish, I taught seven women how to use one of the most powerful digital marketing tools so they can spread everything they have learned through empowering communities and advocating for environmental and social justice to others who see them as role models – which I do.

We will continue to work together to harness the power of social media for social change, and I can’t wait for our next bilingual, unplanned, unpredictable, slow-paced and oh-so-inspiring meeting.