Duty Of Care: Protecting Children In War - Risk Your Life Playing This Ultra-Violent REAL FPS Game
Everyone loves playing first-person shooter videogames, kids and adults alike, but try to imagine for a moment if you will the scenario where this is not a game at all, but real life for your chosen game character, which in this case is a little nine-year-old girl called Nima. It gives a whole new meaning to game over if you get killed.
All of a sudden being shot by gun-wielding militants and watching the execution of your father before collapsing in shock takes on a dark and sinister feeling as you realize that scenarios like this are actually happening in some of the middle-eastern conflict zones. Scary stuff indeed.
It's all very thought-provoking stuff and has been cleverly conceived by the charity War Child, as part of its HELP campaign aiming to prevent atrocities against children in war zones around the world.
The charity outlines it's aims in a press release:
"The purpose of the campaign video is to engage people to sign the petition which calls on the UK Government to become champions for children in war, such as those Nima represents in the video.
War Child UK knows, from over two decades of expertise in the field, that child protection interventions in war save lives and that children and their families prioritise their safety and education above even the most basic needs such as food and shelter.
The simple truth is, whilst food, water and shelter are daily necessities, they do not keep a child in war safe from harm.
The medical kit in the video demonstrates that these tangible forms of aid are offering a cure to only part of the problem – they cannot treat trauma, and they cannot stop the violent acts that cause the trauma in the first place."
It's thought-provoking stuff, made more so by statistics that show that last year was one of the worst in history for the world's children, with some 15 million caught up in violent conflicts in the Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, the Palestinian Territories, Syria and Ukraine.
The HELP campaign aims to unite thousands of people behind this goal and asks them get behind the campaign by signing an online petition. So get signing people and help make things change for these children.
And next time you play Call of Duty try to remember that somewhere on the planet a situation like this might be happening for real.
