Aluma puts homeless people on the map. The virtual maps - Gowalla and Facebook places.

The other night Aluma a magazine that raises money for the homeless, and their agency in Malmö working pro-bono The Fan Club, had a pow-wow where they spent the evening putting homeless people on the map. The virtual maps that is, where we all spend our days constantly GPS-checking in with our various do-dahs and expensive gadgets. There are 900 homeless people in Malmö, 150 of them are children, and Aluma worries they have become invisible to people. "The homeless have become a part of the city. They're no longer visible to us. With this campaign we hope to put them on the map again" says Anna Kind from Aluma when she explains the idea. 900 spots have been created in Malmö, with a random name and GPS combinations, so that one can check in at "homeless Cathy's container" and similar sounding spots. It might seem like a contradiction to check in at a homeless person's "house", but when you do a number appears, if you text ALUMA50 to the number 72445 you'll donate 50 SEK to the homeless.

I Malmö finns 900 hemlösa. Aluma vill sätta dem på kartan. SMS:a ALUMA50 till 72445, så skänker du 50 kr till arbetet mot hemlöshet.

News orgs were quick to pick this campaign up. It has already appeared in both local and national TV, as well as in the local newspapers Skånskan and Sydsvenskan, and in the trade press Resume, Dagens Media.
 

Eagle-eyed adgrunts will note that indeed, I'm in the middle in the pow-wow pictured above. 

That's because I know how to defy the laws of physics, so I taught the entire agency how to do it. And I'm positioned as close to that bowl of cheez doodles as possible. From this, you can conclude that I work for cheez doodles!

Only if it's a pro-bono client though. ;)