The Adivasi march - an online virtual march for ActionAid

I know this is against what used to be called netiquette (or so I’ve heard), but just occasionally Chroma feels the need to blow our own trumpet.

The project we have just launched for charity ActionAid falls into this category for several reasons: great technology, great design and great viral potential. Primarily flash, the site features some very clever actionscript that hooks up with a load of databases enabling individual graphics to be created and emailed out, pulls in some clever viral features and has a really impressive illustrated landscape for avatars to virtually march through.

ActionAid asked us to create the virtual march to celebrate the 20th anniversary of a land-rights march in India. It needed to appeal to teachers and increase teacher sign-ups for schools information while providing a compelling online activity for primary school children to get involved with and learn about issues around land rights and life in other countries.

A bit like the Nintendo Wii’s Mii creator, users build their own avatar from a wide range of available options with a 1 in a zillion chance (or thereabouts) of creating an exact replica of another. Then they write a message on a virtual placard and join a march of thousands of other avatars. Marchers make their way through a landscape featuring clickable people and buildings based on the landscape of the Nilgiri Hills in India which brings me neatly to the whole point of the march…

The Adivasis of the Nilgiri Hills in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu are the original tribal people of the region. Over hundreds of years, non-tribal people took away their land and with it, their way of life. Deciding to act, nearly 10,000 Adivasis marched through the local town of Gudalur on 5 December 1988. It was the first time they had joined together to protest and this new sense of unity has helped them to secure the rights to 200 small villages, including Chembakolli. Chembakolli is the subject of a website and teaching resources outlining life and change in an Indian village. Chembakolli features on some primary schools curricula - see more on ActionAid’s chembakolli.com site.

ActionAid’s brief required that we deliver a site that drives primary school teacher and pupil interaction and delivers an increased number of teacher sign-ups for information about ActionAid’s initiatives for schools including chembakolli.com resources.

Users are guided through a registration process as they personalise their marcher avatar and create their personal message culminating in a permalink to a downloadable jpeg version of their personal avatar graphic. Users can also search for their own and other’s marcher avatars within the march interface and download graphic versions of their marcher for use as Facebook icons etc.

So to celebrate 20 years of Chembakolli and to show your suppport, join the Adivasi March, oh, and Firefox users can check out the retro classic blink tag…