Sydney-siders have the chance to “step into the shoes” of a teenage Syrian refugee with a virtual reality, immersive story-telling experience at the Macquarie Centre in North Ryde.
The 360 degree experience, which visitors must don VR goggles to experience at World Vision’s first pop-up ‘experiential centre’, centres on the life of 14-year-old Ali, who has fled Aleppo and is now living in a refugee camp in the Bekka Valley.
Viewers are able to ‘walk’ through the day with Ali as he tries to earn money in the streets of Lebanon to keep his family alive and join him as he finds refuge in a World Vision-run ‘child friendly space’ in what the organisation describes as a bid to provide “viewers a rare insight into the significant impact such specially created safe spaces have on the lives of many of the children trapped in the chaos caused by conflict or natural disasters”.
Claire Rogers, World Vision Australia‘s CEO, said the use of virtual reality is aimed at connecting supporters with in a “compelling and informative way to the work that as individuals they are supporting in communities around the world”.
“Immersive storey-telling allows Australians to see and virtually ‘experience’ the changes they are helping to make in the lives of the most vulnerable through their support for World Vision,” she said. “The potential of VR to help us close the gap between your average Australian’s understanding of what ‘aid’ is and the reality of World Vision’s powerful development and humanitarian response on the ground, is ground breaking.”
The digital storytelling platform will be rolled out nationally next year. World Vision’s Experiential Centre can be found on the 1st floor of the Macquarie Centre, at the corner of Herring and Waterloo Rds in North Ryde, until the end of February.
