Background: 

The small, west African country of Sierra Leone has been hit by civil wars over blood diamonds, the Ebola crisis, and devastating natural disasters, all within a couple decades of each other. This has left infrastructure and communities in disrepair. But no one has been affected more by these events than the children who live there. Schools all over the country were closed and access to an education is extremely limited.

 

As a result, children have to walk on up to 9 miles (14.5 km) daily just to get to school—down dirt paths lined with deadly snakes, through monsoons, in 100-degree heat with little to no drinking water, past abandoned diamond mines filled with malaria-ridden water, and down roads dominated by sexual predators. And that's just one-way.

 

Our goal was to change this fact by building more schools closer to children’s homes, making education more accessible for all.

 

Creative Idea:

Most people don’t know where Sierra Leone is, let alone the fact that education is not readily available to the children who live there. We had to bring the reality of what they experience on a daily basis while walking 9 miles to school to life in a way that others could experience all over the world. And make them care.

 

So, we created 9MileScroll.com: A virtual journey to school that literally scrolls for 9 continuous miles (14.5 km) and gives users a first-person perspective on just how far these children have to walk. The scroll itself takes users 3 to 5 hours to complete, mirroring the 3 to five hours it takes children to complete their walk to school. As the user embarks on their 9-mile scroll, from the village to the school, they experience what the children go through day in and day out. Keep in mind, children still have to walk home after school.

 

 

Strategy:

Our strategy was simple: drive donations in order to raise enough money to build another school closer to the children's homes. Because no child should have to embark on this arduous journey just for an education. 

 

But first we had to figure out how to contextualize the fact that children walk up to 9 miles to school in a way that would resonate with people all over the world, from the comforts of their home computer or mobile phone. 

 

 

Execution: 

9MileScroll.com is an interactive experience that scrolls for exactly 9 miles (14.5 km). As people scroll, we give them an exact distance count that tells them how far they’ve gone. Then, every time they stop scrolling, it tells them just how much further they have to go, along with a call to action to donate so Shine On Sierra Leone can continue to build more schools. The 9 miles scroll is broken down into mile markers, each represents a different challenge or obstacle that these children face on their epic journey to school. As people scroll, they are served up facts and stories given to us by actual children who live in Sierra Leone and who do this walk on a daily basis.

 

 

Results:

Over 1.5 million impressions around the #9milescroll movement

Thousands of website visits in the first 24 hours.

Most importantly, a new school was built closer to children’s homes as a result of the campaign.