A simple act like raising your hand to speak up about work safety can be very empowering to a young worker. What if you could multiply that simple act by several thousand to create a movement? Josh Dueck, Paralympic silver medalist, raised his hand for 9,307 high-fives to break a world record. Teaming up with WorkSafeBC, Josh made his world record attempt on August 27.

As an injured young worker himself, Josh Dueck was the perfect spokesperson for the Raise Your Hand movement. As a competitive athlete, he was primed to shatter the world record. With the aid of Wasserman + Partner's crack activation team, we were able to generate an estimated media coverage reaching over 3.3 million viewers.

In addition to the live event, which included a high-energy performance by the Now or Never B-boy crew and the unfailing energy of hype men Johnny Staub and DJ Flipout from the Beat 94.5, we received coverage from CTV, GlobalTV news, and the Province. Twitter and the blogosphere was abuzz with posts and mentions from numerous local new media socialites like Hummingbird 604, Miss 604, Gus and Vancity Buzz.

The record breaking event drew attention to the idea that a single simple act can lead to bigger change. If a single raised hand can prevent a young worker from being injured, imagine what thousands of raised hands could do.