Jeffery’s comments came as Just a Drop on Monday (20 March) launched its #WalktotheWell social media campaign ahead of World Water Day (22 March).
Through the initiative, people can follow – virtually – the journey women without access to water have to make to get it. The campaign challenges people to scroll through the 2,000 tweets that make the #WalktotheWell thread, thought to be the longest in Twitter’s history.
MORE: How you can take part in the #WalktotheWell initiative
“The reality is that women and children in other parts of the world are held back by the need to walk long distances and take the time to collect water on a daily basis,” Jeffery told TTG.
“The travel industry can nevertheless make an enormous difference by recognising this is what women and girls face and by supporting them.”
The Twitter thread roughly approximates the 9km walk Ann, a 32-year-old mother of two living in rural Kenya, has to make each day to get water.
“While people are aware of it as an issue, we wanted to tell the story and create the reality in a way that people had a much closer experience to what it was really like,” Jeffery continued.
The campaign – developed by the creative agency behind easyJet and easyJet Holidays’ ads – was also backed by Twitter. “We took part in a competition organised by Twitter called ‘#Poweredbytweet’,” Jeffery added. “Twitter believes it’s a really creative and impactful campaign as we won against 60 other agency partnerships.”
The thread starts with the tweet below.
