Tearfund
view printable versionWho are Tearfund?
How do Tearfund use ICT?
What difference has ICT made?
What was learnt?
Want to find out more?
Who are Tearfund?
Tearfund works with local churches and Christian agencies to open up brighter futures for the world’s poorest communities. Tearfund does this by working with local communities to provide healthcare, literacy courses, clean water and sanitation, HIV / AIDS education and drug rehabilitation. Tearfund is also on standby to offer emergency disaster relief across the world.
How do Tearfund use ICT?
In 2005, as part of the wider Make Poverty History campaign, Tearfund and WaterAid developed an innovative online game to raise awareness of the issues surrounding the aid money European Union countries give to water and sanitation projects. The game was designed to convey important policy information and an opportunity to lobby for change, as well as being fun.
The idea of the game was for the player to collect EU aid (represented by coins falling from the top of the screen) in a bucket. The three levels represented different issues, illustrating some of the obstacles that stop aid ‘getting through’ to the poorest:
- Level 1: Money falls very slowly from the top of the screen (representing that there simply isn’t enough aid money allocated for water and sanitation)
- Level 2: Money falls in a big pile, all at once, every 2 or 3 seconds, with nothing in between, making it impossible to catch all the coins (representing that money for water and sanitation is uncoordinated between EU states and as a result aid flows are unpredictable)
- Level 3: Another two buckets come in from the side and ‘steal’ some of the money (representing that money is sometimes directed towards ‘middle-income’ countries rather than the poorest, most needy countries)
At the end of the game the score is displayed with two options: play again or contact the Secretary of State for International Development. If the latter is chosen then players are directed to a form on the website where they can enter their details and a personalised letter to Hilary Benn is generated.
What difference has ICT made?
By the end of 2005, Tearfund had generated 10,000 letters to the Secretary of State for International Development.
The game and the response generated by it, kick started a dialogue on the issues between the Department for International Development and Tearfund/WaterAid.
What was learnt?
- That online campaigns can be effective campaigning opportunities
- Multimedia can be used effectively and intelligently to convey complex policy issues
- The game proved popular with Tearfund’s youth audience and was popular at festivals in the summer where it was displayed on laptops.
Want to find out more?
Please contact:
Nick Harris
Tearfund
100 Church Road
Teddington
TW11 8QE
nick.harris@tearfund.org
020 8943 7886