How a Woman’s Trek for Clean Water Became a Twitter Thread
Fiona Jeffery OBE, founder and chairman of Just a Drop, a charity bringing sustainable safe water, sanitation and hygiene products to communities that have little to no access to them, knew there was no more time to waste back in 1998. Shortly after becoming a mum and upon learning that a child died every 17 seconds (compared to two minutes as of today) because of dirty water - as well as that just £1 could provide a child with clean water for ten days – she set out trying to form the charity.
Fiona based Just a Drop on getting the maximum impact from a limited number of resources - having pushed to make the travel industry more sustainable, sustainability was always at the heart of everything Just a Drop is, and is still deeply embedded in their ethos. “All of our projects are spun around the central tenet that our programmes are environmentally friendly, community owned and that our maintenance and support extends long after the project’s completion,” Fiona says. “By employing this approach, we help people and communities around the world with opportunities which they have so often been deprived of due to the lack of access to clean water.”
This brings us to this year’s World Water Day, when Just a Drop partnered with VCCP London to increase the charity’s profile resulting in larger donations and simultaneously raising awareness among the public on the huge hurdles some communities face while trying to retrieve clean water. The campaign dubbed #WalktotheWell is a disruptive and physical example of the direct suffering experienced by people walking miles on end to get water for their families and communities.
Ann, a resident from Mwingi West in Kenya, was placed at the centre of the campaign which explored her nine-kilometre daily walk to safe water. “As her husband is at work, it falls on Ann to do this and aside from the exhausting and time-consuming nature of this walk, she is also vulnerable to attacks by people and animals along the way. Not only this, but she is also unable to spend time with her children and generate an income due to the immense effort of her daily walk for water,” explains Fiona. “It really seems incredible when the lack of something we often take for granted can have such a devastating impact. What drives our work at Just a Drop is the knowledge that there are millions of women just like Ann, all of whom can be helped by the simple act of being provided with access to safe water.”
To really bring Ann’s story home for those that have never experienced anything close to her struggle, VCCP created a form of social media challenge, which encourages people to do what they do best - scroll. A Twitter thread of drone images of Ann’s walk, The Walk To The Well campaign asks viewers to scroll through Ann’s daily walk from her house, through the gruelling journey, along with its physical threats and mental struggles as she collects water. The thread takes approximately an hour to properly scroll through, with the intention being that many people won’t be able to complete it, even from the comfort of their own homes. If people decide to give up scrolling, they will simply like the tweet at the point they’ve reached which will trigger an auto-reply showing the distance they’ve walked.
LBB’s Zoe Antonov spoke to Fiona and Laura Muse, creative director at VCCP about the challenges that came with filming Ann’s walk, the mission behind the campaign and more.
LBB> What was the brief for the campaign and how did the ideation process start?
Laura> The brief was to create something for Just a Drop which increased their profile as a charity and could raise some much-needed donations.
From the very start, VCCP worked very closely with Just a Drop to fully understand the organisation, its work and the impact achieved and quite quickly recognised that this was an organisation concerned with people, not just the problem.
LBB> Why did you approach the problem through social media and how did you develop the idea of a challenge?
Laura> As the charity operates differently to others, we knew we needed the work to take a different approach too. Unfortunately, the water crisis isn’t news and it’s surrounded by clichéed storytelling. We noticed though that, on average, we scroll around two kilometres a day. So we decided to turn that into a challenge - getting people in the UK to experience a real woman’s walk.
Fiona> As a charity or NGO, it is always important to be constantly looking for ways to reach new audiences. This is not just for fundraising purposes, but a role for any charity is to make people aware of the issue you are tackling and the impact of the work you do. The more people we can inform about the everyday realities of people who live without access to clean water and the massive impact that access to water can have, the more these issues will gain the gravity they deserve. By using social media, we hoped to inform the, often younger, demographics about an age-old problem which we have only seen become more pressing due to climate change.
LBB> How did you find Ann and how did she feel about participating in the campaign? Was there a casting process at all?
Laura> Just a Drop works across the world with in-country partners, and in Kenya, this is with the Africa Sand Dam Foundation (ASDF). ASDF operate at a grassroots level and is in touch with communities on a daily basis, and through this engagement, Ann was identified as the perfect participant.
We spoke with Ann about the campaign idea and she was very happy to help, as she is very active in her community, teaching others about safe water and hygiene. She is a prime example of the untapped potential that these women have - imagine what changes she can make for her family and community if she didn’t have to do this walk every day.
LBB> Tell me about everything that went into the process of capturing Ann's nine-kilometre walk.
Laura> To get something so beautiful and immersive with a limited budget was not easy. We were doing something that had never been done before, so we had to work out a lot of the hurdles ourselves. Like how high does the drone need to be to make the scroll long enough? At the start, we thought the scroll should be the exact distance Ann walks, but after a bit of maths (creatives doing maths!) we realised that would be hundreds of thousands of tweets. In the end, we realised we needed to get someone to go out to Kenya and meet up with the local drone crew so we could help guide them. Although this was an investment from VCCP, it was invaluable to the work. The specifics of her daily experience that we got back from Ed Roe, our filmmaker, meeting her in person gave the story a much deeper, more meaningful level of detail and authenticity.
LBB> Tell me more about the copy that went with the images - how did you decide where to strategically place the copy and how did you come up with it? Was Ann involved in that?
Laura> We sent a few versions of the script over to the ASDF and Ann to check we weren’t saying anything that didn’t reflect her experiences. We made some big shifts from early versions based on that and then it really started to come to life. In the design process, we decided to keep the copy placed around Ann so the reader feels very connected to her at every stage. Even if you try and rush through it, you can’t forget about the real person at the heart.
LBB> Did you shoot in just one day? How did the shoot go and did you face any challenges? Overall, how was it to carry the production out in Mwingi West in Kenya?
Laura> Yes, we shot Ann’s nine-kilometre walk in one day, it went really well, helped by on the ground support by ASDF and a comprehensive plan of activity.
Ann lives about a day’s drive from Nairobi, so production faced challenges even reaching her with mile after mile of unpaved, uneven roads. Our production vehicle broke down due to the rough terrain and was stranded for a few hours until a local mechanic from the nearest town could be found.
lso, Ed was originally supposed to go out to Kenya with a member of the Just A Drop team. But unfortunately, Brendan’s visa didn’t come through. The charity had been working with one of the communities there for a while though, so locals from another village had organised a get together to mark the opening of a sand dam. Without Brendan there to give a speech, the honour fell to Ed and despite being put on the spot, he did them proud.
LBB> Tell me about the OOH part of the campaign - how did you select which images to go on posters and why did you decide that this was the best continuation for the social media aspect?
Laura> The OOH was donated by some brilliant media partners, Posterscope and Maxx Media through VCCP Media. It was a real bonus to help get more eyes on the campaign and boost awareness. There was a lot of stunning imagery to choose from but simple graphic imagery of her struggle was the deciding factor.
LBB> How have people interacted with the Twitter thread so far?
Laura> The start of the thread has had more than 13 million views and, collectively, users have walked 11,090km - which is around 1,200 hours spent scrolling to date. 947 people have made it to the well but only 271 made it all the way home again - proving that not many people are willing to sacrifice so much of their own time for the walk.
LBB> What do you hope people will take away from the campaign?
Laura> Billions of hours of human potential are being wasted because people have to walk for hours to collect water. It’s time to end this and give them their future back.
LBB> Was there a particular point of research that spurred this campaign and what was it?
Fiona> At Just a Drop, we feel that the work we do is of real value and that often we have a really good and positive story to tell. We wanted to tell those stories to more people and find new audiences, so that’s what really spurred the campaign. Once people were more aware of our work and brand, we figured they’d be more likely to donate to us, so we’re able to deliver more projects and benefit more people – and so create more stories, so this campaign really adds up for us.
LBB> Was there a particular point of research that informed this campaign and what was it?
Fiona> At Just a Drop, we feel that the work we do is of real value and that often we have a really good and positive story to tell. We wanted to tell those stories to more people and find new audiences, so that’s what really spurred the campaign. Once people were more aware of our work and brand, we figured they’d be more likely to donate to us, so we’re able to deliver more projects and benefit more people – and so create more stories, so this campaign really adds up for us.
LBB> Besides this campaign, what else is Just a Drop doing for this year's World Water Day?
Fiona> The Walk to the Well is such a great opportunity to increase donations, reach new audiences and raise our profile in such a creative way, that we haven’t felt the need to do too much else! In previous years, we’ve always had some form of campaign, but never on this scale.
LBB> Looking at the past few years, have things gotten better when it comes to accessible water worldwide? What can countries and governments do better in the years to come?
Fiona> We do see that more people have access to safe water, and the statistics bear this out, but even now there are still literally millions of people to whom safe water remains a dream. There are also plenty of places where governments are doing their bit, but in too many places where it matters, government funds just aren’t available to provide comprehensive safe water infrastructure. A main reason for this is the need for many countries to service loans taken out possibly years ago, and such repayments are simply holding development back.
Whilst progress has been made, the risk is that with climate change the likelihood is that the situation will worsen for communities across the world impacted by the effects.
LBB> What do you believe is the role of creative media in taking part in this conversation like VCCP has through this poignant campaign?
Fiona> As a small-medium-sized charity, VCCP allowed us to access media and marketing knowledge and processes which we ourselves do not have the resources for. Their creativity, insight, and hard work have been incredible throughout the campaign. While we have provided VCCP with our aims, facts about our projects, and raw assets, they have transformed these into an innovative and far-reaching social media campaign which has already reached millions of people. What VCCP has allowed us is to create a partnership whereby their expertise in creative media has allowed our mission, and the story of women like Ann, to not just reach but to engage with a far wider audience than ever before.
LBB> How does this disruptive approach resonate with Just a Drop as a charity and its approach? And why was it so important to be disruptive with this one?
One of the main takeaways we have from the campaign is the amount of misinformation which still exists surrounding the lack of access to water as well as international development in general. The first few days of the campaign saw us inundated by Twitter users sceptical of giving money to international development, responding that Ann should just move closer to a water source, and often disbelieving that a lack of access to water could still be an issue. This demonstrated even further the need for the information we were providing via social media. For a brief explainer, we have an article addressing some of these points available here: https://www.justadrop.org/News/but-why-cant-people-just-move-closer-to-water.
LBB> Any final thoughts?
Overall, I’d just like to thank VCCP for their phenomenal support and hard work for the entirety of the campaign. I believe that what Just a Drop and VCCP proved over the course of the campaign was the impact and opportunity which can be created by partnerships such as this. With their digital media and marketing knowledge, VCCP were able to transform our work into an innovative campaign which is reaching millions of people. I really hope that other companies and charities will be able to do this in the future as I think we have shown that the results can be amazing.
