I have been featured on the BBC :)

jamesoliverstone

jamesoliverstone

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Well, today is a very good day indeed!

If you look at the BBC news site, I have been featured on the world news page :D
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23239800

They covered my recent photo story in Africa for girls that face dangerous walks to school in support of UN Malala Day :)

To say I am chuffed is an understatement, I am so glad to be able to help raise awareness for underprivileged girls around the world...

Just so happy I had to share :D
 
Hi James, Well done keep up the good work. It's surprising what a lift it gives you when you get something published.:thumbs:
 
Just been looking at that at work. Excellent indeed. Very well done to you.
 
Congratulations! You must be really pleased.
An excellent set of shots and a thoughtful story. I support UNICEF but so much still needs to be done.
 
As others have said, great shots highlighting an important story.

Difficult to complain about having to drop off and collect my daughters from school when compared to what they go through.
 
Congratulations on being featured.

But what a great service you are doing highlighting such issues. The photographs are beautiful and work perfectly to describe the issue.

I take my hat off to you. I'm happy when I take a nice portrait, but very few of us ever get to use our art to help improve the world about us.

Best wishes for the future that you can continue with this form of social documentary.
 
Thank you all so much for the kind words :thumbs:

I am very honoured to be able to help raise awareness for girls rights around access to safe education. I also shot video too which is being used for the UN Malala Day video for Plan so all in all its been one of my most successfull trips to date.

And to top it all off, my parents had a hit in 1979 with a song called "We Do It" and its just been on Radio 2's chosen love song of the day :D

All in all a good day so far!
 
Just got an update too...

"I have just heard that the story slideshow published this morning on BBC World News, entitled “In pictures: Tanzanian girl's long walk to education”, will also now be used across the whole BBC global platform and published in Swahili, Turkish, Arabic, Russian and Brazilian.

I am informed by the BBC editor that these foreign language sites, in their turn, will be circulating the piece amongst their national news sites. The BBC's Global News division attracts a weekly global audience of around 238 million people to its international news services."

Nice!
 
Excellent, well done. One of my photos was used as a book cover a couple years ago so I have an inkling how you must feel.

What amazes me about the photos is how such beautiful landscapes can contain so many dangers.
 
I've just seen it there and tried to remember where I saw the work before.

It's great work and well documented!
 
Awesome!

Keep up the amazing work you have achieved so far.
 
Steve said:
Congratulations on being featured.

But what a great service you are doing highlighting such issues. The photographs are beautiful and work perfectly to describe the issue.

I take my hat off to you. I'm happy when I take a nice portrait, but very few of us ever get to use our art to help improve the world about us.

Best wishes for the future that you can continue with this form of social documentary.
Click to expand...

Sums up my thoughts aswell.... Brilliant stuff :thumbs:
 
Nice one, great shots and its really nice to see someone so keen on improving the world with their skills :)
 
Congratulations James all that hard work has paid off.

I remember the song, should do I bought it and left it on a bus so had to go out and buy it again :lol:
 
Great set of images
Really heartbreaking reading of her options on walking 7km alone with different sets of hazards to choose from
Hope she goes on to live her dream as a teacher, but this is just one case among 1000s
Which is why I take my hat off to you guys raising awareness
The way she just gets on with it is humbling
 
As always James, stunning photos from you. Not only in the technical aspect but in the story telling also.
 
I saw these earlier today, thought they were brilliant photos and shared the article with all my Facebook contacts. Very well done! :thumbs:
 
Thank you everyone for the kind words and support :thumbs:

Its been a crazy day, loads of people have been in touch trying to buy clothing or give money to her directly, someone even offered their bike so she could cycle! Its heart warming to see people really want to help out :)

It was the 5th highest article to be shared on the BBC website yesterday so I am very proud to be able to help.

Thanks again everyone, I feel like the hard work is starting to pay back at last :D
 
James, do you get updates on Sylvia?

Just thinking it would be nice to know whether Sylvia received any support on the back of the publicity.
 
Well, actually we have made some really good progress in that respect.

We spoke to the local community leaders about her (and other girls like her) and they have agreed to build a rural school which is closer to the where these villages are, and some of the mothers have volunteered to walk groups of the children to the school for their protection. This will have a direct positive impact on her and her friends, which for me is really amazing. But she is just one child out of millions, but hopefully this will help (along with the UN campaign for Malala Day) to highlight this...

As for the publicity raised through this, we have certainly seen an increase in traffic and social media activity to Plan, but they still need time to analyse the incoming data.

It certainly seems that there will be a definate positive impact, so I hope that we get an increase in child sponsorship funds to enable us to deliver more programmes in these areas.

Thanks for asking :thumbs:
 
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That's really promising news, James. As the father of a young daughter your photos and the story made an impact on me. So, it's good to know Sylvia and others will reap some benefit that will allow them to access to education without the current level of risk.

:)
 
Partly inspired by your work, James, I've just made a donation to UNICEF which "could buy exercise books for 180 children and pencils for a whole school."

:)
 
congrats! :)

great shots, well deserved to be on the beeb!
 
I read that the other day and wondered if it was you. Well done - I don't think I would have been able to do something like that, think I may have got far too emotionally involved
 
Thanks everyone!

I have just done a radio interview for FM4 in Vienna this morning, which was really quite weird and unexpected (its a random thing to be told at work that you are going on national Austrian radio!)

If you want to hear the interview its here: http://fm4.orf.at/stories/1721234/

I am so chuffed that this has gone so far, and now its the second highest shared article on the BBC World News Africa section!
 
Wow, fantastic photos, and an exceptionally worthy cause to highlight. I'm going to show this to my nine year old daughter. She's a pretty conscientious girl anyway, but it does no harm to be reminded how incredibly well off we all are in the UK, no matter how hard we think we're having it right now.

I also think this kind of thing illustrates why we should be proud to have the BBC.
 
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