Let Me Breathe (LMB) is a platform that provides space to document and tell stories of living and surviving air pollution in India. It started out as a hashtag used by Delhiites while uploading their videologs documenting their days of high pollution but over time has quickly developed into a pan India movement.
LMB combines the ethics of mobile journalism, reach of social media with public engagement at its core. Launched 7 months ago it has already reached out to more than 7. 5 million people and has generated more than 2.5 million views on stories submitted by ordinary folks. They have just launched a video series on Twitter- #PollutionStories.
LMB’s facebook and twitter page acts as a catalogue of all the videos it has received from across India. Influencers range from entrepreneurs in Delhi, Resident Welfare Association (RWA) leaders, non-profits, policy makers to people surviving pollution everyday in the ‘power hub of India’ Singrauli. Some of these stories have already been picked up by big national media houses such as NDTV, Hindustan, as well as citizen initiatives such as YouthKiAwaz.
LMB is funded by various philanthropies and grants and is open to exploring partnerships with organisations who want to work on finding solution to the problem of air pollution. According to them, all you need is a mobile phone and mic to tell a compelling stories.
The initiative now plans to hold workshops across India to talk about LMB and train people on how to use their smartphones to document cause of air pollution as well as things they do to mitigate or protect themselves from pollution.
Communities exist in Delhi, Mumbai, Gangtok, Singrauli at the moment – but they are moving to build more in Bengaluru, Pune, Chandigarh and Kolkata in the coming months.
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