There are many VR companies that sprung up over the past few years dealing with VR. VR became a big deal when the ITU adopted it as part of the technology for good.
Some initiatives are UN-based, and others are NGO initiatives to help the UN achieve those goals. For example,
- The very first one was Clouds
Over Sidra -Jordan, in 2015. Filmed in December 2014 in the Zaatari Refugee
Camp in Jordan, home to 130,000 Syrians fleeing violence and war. Children make
up half the camp’s population. Sidra is a young girl who has lived in the Camp
since summer 2013 and wants to go home. The VR film takes us through her tent
and how she lives.
https://www.with.in/watch/clouds-over-sidra/ - I Am Fatmira UNDP in Europe and Asia, speaks about the Roma people.
- Guardians of the Forest
– Brazil – about saving the Amazon forest.
https://guardiansoftheforest.me/home-old/ - Ground Beneath Her – Nepal – about experiencing an earthquake and its aftermath of destruction.
- Under the Net – features
an 11-year-old girl named Amisa, a refugee living in the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp
in Tanzania with her mother and six siblings. Struggling to survive each day,
with no protection from mosquitoes that carry malaria at night, viewers
experience Amisa’s life through her eyes. Hope abounds as her family moves into
a new home, gets treatment for malaria, and she and her siblings prepare to
start school in the fall – none of which is possible without the life-saving
protection of bed nets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaDsQer8XzA
This year at the UN Women’s conference in NY, we watched a few VR films on topics regarding women of course. There were a total of 4 films that one can choose from and they were produced by Google:
- Ep 1: Chief Kachindamoto on child marriages – Malawi| COURAGE TO QUESTION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5_yPX17-Yc
- This one was extremely powerful – on sex trafficking – Mexico: Ep 2: Lydia Cacho https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=AmQtStoSCLs
- Ep 3: Asha Kowtal – Dalit
women in India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=pJCl8FNv22M - Ep 4: Alice Marie Johnson –
on prisons worldwide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Vbhqg3KhTn0
Other NGO projects that may be more ‘pleasant’ to support the SDGs :
OrthoVR,
The Life Project
The Blank Canvas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PxBfex7yxc
Tree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERffRXjTAqM
The Extraordinary Honey Bee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXYqULCBuD8.
