Individuals and businesses join forces to march across the net

A few weeks ago I heard about a new campaign by the charity BeatBullying and I loved it. It’s called the Big March and it’s the first ever “virtual march” and it's happening today.

I don’t understand. A virtual march – what???

Individuals sign up to create digital characters of themselves that will “march” through websites on the day of the campaign. Organisations sign up to volunteer their websites so that these “avatars” can march across them. Both of these come together to make up a digital march that lasts 12 hours. The idea is to raise awareness of a child's right not to be bullied by marching across thousands of websites.

I’m still a little confused – can you paint a picture?

So what you might see on the day is a digital character marching across the BeatBullying website, then step off and find itself on another organisation’s website, march across that one, then on to another, and so on until the march is over.

It sounds interesting but why do you love it?

It offers a very simple and new way for organisations to get involved in a cause and show their support. And the BeatBullying website facilitates this further - it has a park for characters to march round with personalised sign boards, and you can wander into digital information “tents” created by BeatBullying and the

big partner organisations. Each of the digital tents has its own interactive content, which means that I could enter the Orange tent and watch their videos on staying safe online, or take a look in the Fruitshoot tent and get involved in their games. All this means that through the interactive website, brands are able to support the cause whilst also putting themselves in a positive light to the individuals taking part.

Sounds good. How can I get involved?

It’s taking place today and all you have to do is sign up on the website or get in touch to get your organisation involved. You'll see people marching across the partner websites like this: