Nepal in 3D, rapping refugees and Shakira on film: our 2016 digital highlights

At Theirworld, we believe you can change the lives of children and give them a brighter future by bringing people’s voices together.

Whether you’re a celebrity, a global leader, a refugee, a researcher or a supporter of our causes, everyone can do their bit to raise awareness of the barriers faced by children.

Theirworld’s campaigns aim to create change and bring better education and health to the most vulnerable children. Our projects pilot new ideas. And our news service reports daily on childhood issues around the world.

To help spread the word, we share stories, videos, blogs, podcasts, email newsletters and social media that help people to understand the issues and take actions that can help to bring about real change.

Here’s a look at some of the most popular digital content during 2016 from Theirworld and our education movement A World at School. And please keep coming back to us in 2017 – we can’t do this without you.

Nepal one year after the earthquake – in 3D

To mark the one-year anniversary of the 2015 earthquake, Theirworld launched an amazing virtual reality film called Safe Schools: Nepal. 

It captured 360­-degree video and audio, transporting the viewer to Nepal to see and hear stories of children whose education has been affected.

It was made specifically for virtual reality devices – but you can find out here how to move around inside the film on mobile or laptop.

The trailer has been watched on YouTube more than 57,000 times and the full version has had over 165,000 views.

The rapping Syrian refugee brothers

The Karbouj brothers Samir, 13, Abdulrahman, 12, and nine-year-old Mohamed, are Syrian refugees who live in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. 

They displayed their talent for rap music in a video called Straight Outta Syria. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_9uzpL1YA

The video called on the international community to support the Hope for Syria’s Young Talent petition to help get one million Syrian refugee into education in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

The film became a hit in the Middle East and beyond, featuring on TV and being promoted by celebrities. It’s been viewed more than 152,000 times on our YouTube and Facebook channels – and a clip from the video was one of our best-performing tweets of 2016. 

Shakira says: ‘We can get every child in school’

The singing star is a champion of education for underprivileged children. The international singing star is a member of the Education Commission that delivered its Learning Generation blueprint to get every child in school by 2030 to the UN in September. 

Shakira featured in one of our most popular stories of 2016 – about her video promoting the Learning Generation getting more than one million views. 

It had more retweets, Facebook likes and click-throughs to our website than any other social media content.

Comic series shows the power of our Global Youth Ambassadors

The best-read news story we published this year on our website was about Steve Nguyen’s comic book-style series on our Global Youth Ambassadors. The director, writer and producer is a Celebrity Ambassador for Theirworld and has made films for us, appeared at our big events and promoted our campaigns.

Steve thought the illustrated stories were a great way to show how our GYAs are taking the lead in education change. 

Each of the strips in the series, called Presenting, features an interview with a Global Youth Ambassador. You can read them here:

• Issue 1
• Issue 2
• Issue 3

#RewritingTheCode for girls

Apart from the rapping refugee brothers and Shakira, our most popular content on social media featured our #RewritingTheCode campaign to change the embedded values that keep 63 million girls around the world out of school.

WATCH: @theirworld is #RewritingTheCode for vulnerable girls in Africa. What code will you rewrite? #IWD2016 pic.twitter.com/PKC3XrPbY9

— A World at School (@aworldatschool) March 8, 2016

Launched to mark International Women’s Day, celebrities, business leaders, influencers, campaigners and youth from all over the world joined in by posting pictures of themselves with messages using the hashtag #RewritingTheCode.

You can learn more about the campaign here.

Spreading the message in the classroom

As well as our regular flow of news content and blogs about children’s issues, we have a rich archive of content that continues to be popular.

Among our best-read pages every year is the full text of the inspirational speech by education campaigner Malala Yousafzai which she delivered during the Youth Takeover of the United Nations in 2013. During 2016, this was read by more than 115,000 people.

Another favourite is our 10 reasons why children don’t go to school. Published in 2014, it still had more than 32,000 views this year. 

We know that teachers use these and many of our other articles in the classroom – we have many more pages explaining the issues about education, early childhood development and children’s issues here.