Empathy In Numbers - Calling for Kipley
Mom pulls in community to help ban dangerous water beads
In advocacy I've learned that having a large group of people isn’t enough, you have to have empathy in numbers to accomplish impactful action
I’d like to start highlighting instances of advocacy where empathy in numbers had an impact
Kipley Haugen’s story is one everyone should hear because Kipley was injured by a common item that up until recently no one would even have considered to be dangerous
Kipley was poisoned by water beads at two years old and half a decade later she and her family are leading an awareness campaign on the dangers of water beads
Kipley’s mom, Ashley, started a nonprofit with the goal of getting water beads banned
One step in accomplishing this goal was a campaign to alert Poison Control to the dangers of water beads
After Kipley sent letters to all Poison Control centers, Ashley rallied people to call their local Poison Control to ask about the letters
This campaign was more effective than simply sending the letters because it pulled other people into the process that was the follow-up with Poison Control as well as making others aware of the campaign
Since Ashley used public platforms to inform people of the campaign and made people part of the process of informing others she grew awareness of the dangers of water beads
By allocating the follow-up with Poison Control to others, the campaign had significantly more calls than if only Ashley was calling by herself
Ashley and others as a collective accomplished a greater impact with mass awareness for the campaign and mass phone calls than Ashley by herself could have accomplished
I encourage everyone to visit ThatWaterBeadLady.org and call their local poison control to ask if they got Kipley’s letters
Sign the petition
I used to think that with numbers anything could be accomplished, but after observing failed and dismal online efforts at activism I learned that without empathy, you cannot accomplish impactful action. To encourage more effective advocacy, I’ve decided to start highlighting instances of advocacy where empathy in numbers had an impact. Today I’m highlighting a recent advocacy campaign for Kipley Haugen aka That Water Bead Lady.
Kipley’s story is one that everyone should hear because Kipley was injured by a common item that up until recently no one would even have considered to be dangerous. For anyone unfamiliar with Kipley, a child poisoned by water beads when she was only 2 years old, I strongly encourage you to visit ThatWaterBeadLady.org after finishing this piece. Kipley’s family, and frankly little Miss Kipley herself, are dedicated to preventing injury and death from water beads in an attempt at some kind of justice for what happened to Kipley.
For the last half-decade Kipley’s mom, Ashley Haugen, has built up an awareness campaign for the dangers of water beads and more recently founded a non-profit organization that has become “an invaluable resource for families, physicians, and communities in the wake of water bead injury, but it has also become a trusted authority in the areas of harm prevention, toy product injury, and dangerous consumer products more generally.”
Ashley hopes to one day make the nonprofit’s goal to educate about water beads obsolete with the end goal that they are no longer sold as a children’s toy. When the beads are banned from being marketed as a safe item for children and animals, ThatWaterBeadLady.org will have accomplished one of its top priorities.
This goal starts with getting the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban water beads or at the very least have labels that indicate that they are in fact toxic and dangerous to plants, animals, and children.
In the first week of February of this year, Ashley and her nonprofit organized a phone calling campaign to alert Poison Control of the dangers of water beads. She sent letters, that had a personal touch from her daughter Kipley, to all of the Poison Control directors and then asked people to call their local Poison Control to ask if they received the letters.
This particular public advocacy campaign was notably effective for a number of reasons.
First, Ashley started talking about it a whole week in advance, with content that featured Kipley helping with the letters to Poison Control. The letters included information about the dangers of water beads and ThatWaterBeadLady.org.
She then had regular content throughout the week that reminded people about the calling campaign. Each piece of content was another way for people to be made aware of the dangers of water beads, awareness for the nonprofit, and awareness/reminder for the phone calling campaign. The content was linked to a live event on TikTok that people could look forward to and use as a final reminder to call Poison Control. Also, people stumbling across the live and on to Ashley’s content for the first time could become aware of her nonprofit and more importantly the dangers of water beads.
There is no deadline for when the phone calls need to be made to ask Poison Control about the letters. Calling today and asking them about the letters and ThatWaterBeadLady.org will further legitimize the nonprofit’s goals and help them reach them sooner. So in addition to checking out the nonprofit for yourself, I also encourage you to call poison control to leave a message about Kipley’s letters.
With a little bit of empathy, it’s easy to be motivated to make this phone call for Kipley and all the other children adversely affected by water beads. The more people who call the greater the impact of the first call. Advocacy that has numbers has a greater impact.
Another thing that you can do to help prevent further injury from water beads is to direct people to ThatWaterBeadLady.org when encountering content on the internet that is using water beads. Unfortunately, they are commonly used in gimmicky internet challenges. You can frequent the nonprofit's website and follow Ashley on her social media to see important advocacy against water bead injuries.
An ongoing petition to call on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban water beads details cases of multiple children who have been injured by water beads. Signing it not only helps the movement to bring awareness to the dangers of water beads but again it legitimizes the movement, the nonprofit, and everything that Ashley and her family (as well as other families affected by water bead injuries) have done for the last half-decade.
I stated it at the beginning of this article and am going to echo it here again. Check out ThatWaterBeadLady.org to fully understand what happened to Kipley and the gravity of her injury, educate yourself on the dangers of water beads, and spread helpful information to others to put an end to water bead injuries. With empathy in numbers, people can get this product off the market and banned for good.
SIGN THE PETITION
https://www.change.org/p/ban-water-beads-now
VISIT THATWATERBEADLADY.ORG
https://thatwaterbeadlady.org/
FOLLOW ASHLEY ON SOCIAL MEDIA
https://twitter.com/WaterBeadLady
https://www.facebook.com/waterbeadlady/
https://www.instagram.com/thatwaterbeadlady
You are literally a gem! Thank you for writing this and for noticing the work put into making change and using empathy to improve the world for others. I can not thank you enough for your kindness and I am grateful to call you a friend.