Sometimes we’re just as confused as the next NGO. What’s the difference between and ? How do I control the message if I let my supporters tell it? Is there more to than hair and recipes?

As with most things (like the Mad Men season finale), we think the best approach is to gather around the water cooler and share notes.

We’re launching a tweet chat series that aims to bring us, as global health NGOs, together to ask questions and share tips on social media. We’ll have a special guest for each session and a topic of conversation. Our first series is Thursday, June 14th at 2:00 EST and features Mo Scarpelli. She’ll help us discuss how to use multimedia for effective storytelling.

Mo is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and multimedia producer. From journalistic coverage to non-profit activism to conveying the ethos behind a brand, Mo uses stories to connect people, purposes and ideas. Mo spent more than two years directing, shooting, editing and producing major media assets and campaigns for the non-profit organization charity: water. Before that, she managed multimedia content and reported for The Wall Street Journal. With a Bachelor’s in Journalism at the University of Missouri, Mo spearheaded multimedia storytelling for traditional news outlets such as KOMU-TV 8 (Mid-Missouri’s NBC affiliate), KBIA radio and The Columbia Missourian before moving to New York City.

The logistics:

The twitter event will be held 6/14 at 2:00 EST and use hashtag #GHchat.

Feel free to submit questions before the chat or join us for the live hour. An archive of the chat will also be posted on our EndtheNeglect blog. If you are interested in participating or looking for more ideas on how you can incorporate social media into your global health promotion, be sure to check out the event on Twitter.

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END7 is a global advocacy campaign run by the Global Network to raise awareness of the seven most common NTDs and cultivate the resources necessary to end them by 2020. We also provide the opportunity for supporters to help people in need directly — by donating just 50 cents, you can help protect one person for a full year from the seven most common NTDs. Click here to learn more about the END7 Campaign.

If you had an extra $75 billion to put to good use, which problems would you solve first?” See what the Copenhagen Consensus Center would do to help pre-schoolers.

In mid-May, a panel of economic experts convened in Copenhagen, Denmark for Copenhagen Consensus 2012.  The expert panel, comprised of some of the world’s most distinguished economists, including four Noble Laureates, was invited to provide an answer to the question: If we had an extra $75 billion to put to good use, which problems would we solve first?

The goal of Copenhagen Consensus 2012 was analyze the costs and benefits of different approaches and potential for confronting ten of the world’s greatest challenges: Armed conflict, Biodiversity, Chronic Disease, Climate Change, Education, Hunger and Malnutrition, Infectious Disease, Natural Disasters, Population Growth, Water and Sanitation.

During the conference, the panel examined close to 40 proposals, and based on the costs and benefits of the solutions, ranked the proposals in descending order of desirability. Two of their top five recommendations included deworming, a testament to the panel’s belief that NTD control provides a strong opportunity for return on investment.“Bundled interventions to reduce undernutrition in pre-schoolers” (which include “treatments for worms”) was their top solution for “confronting the world’s most important challenges.”  The expert panel noted that the benefits from deworming schoolchildren would not just come from the health effects, but also from make education more productive. Deworming was also listed separately as the fourth most effective solution, reinforcing that NTD control offers “one of the best buys in public health.”

Click here to learn more about Copenhagen Consensus 2012.