'Something really cool': Inside World Vision Experience
Mar 13, 2013
Housed in a mobile semi-truck, World Vision Experience brings the sights and sounds of rural Africa to American audiences. The exhibit debuted at the South by Southwest® music festival in Austin, Texas. “It’s like a 360-degree viewing experience,” says writer Shaun Kempston. “The experience leaves visitors feeling like, ‘Wow, there’s something really cool going on in the world'.” View behind-the-scenes moments in recreating the life of a Tanzanian village. Learn more.
©2012 Robert Coronado/World Vision
The exhibit, housed in a mobile semi-truck, emulates the experience of a donor or child sponsor who heads to Africa to see how their contribution is helping make a better world for children and their families.
©2012 Robert Coronado/World Vision
Visitors first acquire a ticket at an authentic recreation of a Tanzanian bus station. They then board a virtual bus that takes them on an off-road adventure to the community of Kisongo, near Mount Kilimanjaro.
©2012 Robert Coronado/World Vision
A 13-year-old World Vision sponsored child, Babayetu, serves as the guide to Kisongo.
©2012 Robert Coronado/World Vision
Filming a scene in Tanzania, where villagers demonstrate how sponsorship money is helping improve things such as education for children, access to water, and healthcare in the community.
Apart from the bus driver, all the people featured in the exhibit are real, and the accounts of their lives are accurate. None are trained actors, but they come across as remarkably spontaneous and natural on video.
©2012 Robert Coronado/World Vision
Villagers take a break during film shooting.
Inside the exhibit, a display on economic development showcases families developing livelihoods to increase their income.
The experience was created using eight video cameras that were mounted on the front, rear, and sides of a four-wheel drive vehicle that traversed the actual route to Kisongo.
The videos were synchronized and are played on screens that represent the windows of the virtual bus.
©2011 Robert Coronado/World Vision
World Vision Experience provides a child’s eye view of education in a classroom in Kisongo, Tanzania, where this scene was recorded.
©2012 Robert Coronado/World Vision
“It’s like a 360-degree viewing experience,” says Shaun Kempston, a World Vision Experience writer.
Photo courtesy Sherri Washington/World Vision
The World Vision Experience follows the World Vision Experience: AIDS, a mobile exhibit, now retired, that focused on the needs created by the AIDS epidemic. The World Vision Experience will tour churches, college campuses, and public events nationwide.
