UHC Day 2025: Making big ripples with small actions

Hello advocates! We have passed the halfway point in this series on social participation for UHC, and this week we are talking impact. Advocacy doesn’t always have to be loud or sensational, and you don’t have to be famous or powerful to be the catalyst for change. Many of the biggest achievements in health and other spheres started with small actions from ordinary people.

Making big ripples with small actions

So, what is the stone you will throw into the water to create those ripples? A powerful letter speaking of lived experiences, a confident question at a town hall with politicians, social media outreach that mobilizes all the right allies? Sometimes the most powerful advocacy comes from a simple story shared at the right moment.

We know from previous posts how powerful your voice can be, so let’s look at how you can use that voice to create impact.

Who are you talking to?

It may seem like a simple step, but knowing your audience is often the key to crafting impactful messages (take a look at last year’s Substack series for more on the topic).

Before you start planning your messages, think about who is in the best position to help solve the issue you are advocating on. If you want to address a problem in your local clinic, you should be talking to the clinic manager. But if you are aiming for a bigger change to a national law or policy, talk to your elected representative or health ministry. And if they are not available to you, start closer to home with a local representative or civil society group who can help you pass the message up. When you have worked out who your audience is, it’s easier to decide what to say.

Forming solutions-based messages

Concise and compelling messages break through the noise. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to boil everything you want to say down into a couple of strong, relevant sentences which will inspire decision-makers to act. Try using this formula to make your messages constructive and identify the value in your asks:

Problem → Impact → Solution → Ask

This might look like:

“Women around the country are avoiding healthcare for fear of being mistreated or not believed when they speak about their health needs (problem). This can lead to late diagnoses and long-term, preventable complications (impact). We need patient safety and respectful care to be clear national standards — to ensure all women feel safe to seek care early (solution). Can the Ministry of Health commit to creating and enforcing a national respectful-care policy and patient safety training program to protect our most vulnerable populations? (ask).”

Adding tools to your advocacy toolbelt

As an advocate, you have a range of opportunities to share your message, some of which are planned and others spur-of-the moment. So it helps to create a little toolkit of pre-written advocacy messages and materials that you can draw on at a moment’s notice. A short letter, a personal story that sums up the issue, a template media release, key talking points – having simple drafts ready to adapt can take the pressure off when a great advocacy opportunity comes up.

Perhaps most helpful is boiling your message down to one or two sentences. You may have heard of an elevator pitch in marketing – it’s a couple of lines you can say with confidence to get your message across when time is of the essence. Having a clear ask will help you make the most of unexpected opportunities and speak confidently about your cause, no matter the situation.

Using stories to make your messages hit home

Storytelling is one of the most important tools in an advocate’s toolbelt. Leaders and policy-makers are people too, and while facts and statistics drive their work, real-life experiences are more likely to motivate them to take decisive action. Stories remind our leaders that behind every statistic there are unique and important human lives, and that their decisions and investments can improve or even save those lives. By building storytelling into your advocacy, you can build empathy, help others in your community feel heard, and ensure your advocacy leaves a lasting impression.

Here are some tips to help make your stories relatable and engaging:

• Be honest. Stories which speak to the raw emotion of human experiences are most likely to touch people’s hearts and encourage them to act. Be brave and bold when sharing your experiences.

• Make the personal purposeful. There are many people out there who have faced similar challenges to you or know someone else who has. When you share your experience, talk about why this matters for others too. Connecting your story to broader issues will make it more relatable.

• Lean into hope. Ending a story with hope and solutions leaves people wanting to take action. When people feel hopeless, they can get stuck not knowing what to do or how to do it. If people feel there is a solution and know how to contribute to it, they are more likely to come together and work towards it.

• Talk about equity. Many people are motivated by the urge to solve inequities. Use your story to reveal inequities, then highlight what can be done to bring about more equity in that area.

• Highlight the urgency. Explain why this matters now and what people can do to help.

Storytelling creates connection, and when you have the courage to share your experience you will inspire more people to step up and raise their voices, too.

Last week we held a youth capacity-building workshop on storytelling for impact. If you missed it, you can access the event summary, recording and resources here.

Social participation at play

Pictures are for illustrative purposes only. Image by Fundación Huésped of Transgender activists in Argentina.

Transgender and sex-worker communities have played a critical role in shaping health reforms in Argentina through truth-telling and collective advocacy. By openly sharing their lived experiences of stigma, exclusion and barriers to care, these communities brought visibility to injustices that had long been ignored. Their mobilization, in alliance with civil society and other sectors, was pivotal in achieving the Gender Identity Law, which guarantees access to health care and recognition of gender identity without pathologization.

The unionization of sex workers has likewise strengthened national networks, advanced advocacy for occupational health and rights, and fostered the creation of respectful health services and professional networks. These achievements represent significant progress toward recognizing the rights and health needs of groups facing criminalization and vulnerability.

Although stigma and discrimination persist, and sex workers’ labor rights are still not recognized by law, the activism of transgender individuals and sex workers demonstrates how sharing stories and lived truths can drive social participation and transform health policy. Their engagement reinforces the legacy of social movements in Argentina and continues to guide reforms toward UHC grounded in equity and human rights.

Click here to learn more.

What you can do

Try creating your own UHC elevator pitch! Start by writing down the problem, who is impacted, what is the solution, and who can fix it. Once you’ve identified the solution you are looking for and who can solve the problem, it’s time to write down your ask. Keep it simple and direct.

Once your pitch is ready, practice saying it over and over. Even when you are completely familiar with a topic, sometimes information can fly out of your head when under pressure. Learning your simple ask by heart can settle the nerves and give you a starting point to launch into the rest of your advocacy messages.

And don’t forget to tell your story through the #HealthCostsHurt campaign!

Tool spotlight

Check out this year’s customizable campaign graphic. Choose your icons and let your leaders know what you’re sick of!