The plight of Syrian refugees has made headlines everywhere in the past few weeks as tens of thousands fleeing the war in their home country arrive in Europe. But it was not so long ago that aid workers helping refugees on the ground in camps in Jordan or Turkey had to lobby hard to get their stories heard. That is where UNICEF stepped in. The UN’s fund for children’s rights and emergency relief has been providing water, sanitation, hygiene, education as well as protection in camps like Zaatari in Jordan since 2012, shortly after the civil war in Syria started. Zaatari currently hosts around 80,000 refugees, half of whom are children.

Children like 12-year-old Sidra, who is the narrator of the film that bears her name. “Clouds over Sidra” was co-created by Chris Milk and Gabo Arora as a collaborative project between the UN Millennium Campaign) and UNICEF-Jordan along with technical suppliers Samsung and virtual reality company VRSE.works. The film can be viewed in 3D and the user can switch viewpoint simply by moving their head, allowing an experience of total immersion into Sidra's world.

The film follows a day in the life of Sidra as she helps her family at home (she has three brothers, including a baby), goes to school, wanders through the camp and plays football. It is a moving slice of documentary, which ends with a message of optimism from the young girl: “My teacher says that the clouds moving over us also came here from Syria. Someday the clouds and me are going to turn around and go back home.”

Paul Heber, communications manager at UNICEF in Luxembourg, says the local organisation is leading efforts to make Samsung’s 3D viewing glasses an essential tool for awareness raising one day. “We were the first worldwide to have tested the glasses in public.”

In Luxembourg UNICEF has been using the glasses as part of its Global Parents campaign, which encourages donors to sign up for a regular donation aimed at a particular project in the UNICEF stable. “Our street teams have been equipped with said glasses and they have had quite some success in trying to recruit new regular donors who will donate every month,” says Heber.