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Swedish-Spanish Faces2Hearts team heads to Sierra Leone

February 27, 2020

Press Release

Swedish-Spanish Faces2Hearts team heads to Sierra Leone

Swedish-Spanish vlogging duo, Kirstie Hall and Esteban Novillo, will travel to Sierra Leone from 1 to 31 March as part of the European Commission’s Face2Hearts campaign. They will explore the country and report through video on projects that the European Union is funding in the country, in a wide variety of sectors.

Although they are seasoned travellers, Spanish filmmaker Esteban and Kirstie, a North Carolina-born writer based in Sweden, will be both visiting Africa for the first time.

While in Sierra Leone, they will have the opportunity to connect with people who are leveraging EU support to bring about positive change in their communities, working in areas as diverse as education, agriculture, renewable energy, transport infrastructure and electoral reform. The projects that Kirstie and Esteban will visit include:

Support to the education sector in Sierra Leone – a major bilateral programme with budget support to improve public finance management and promote reform and community participation in education at local level;
Technical Assistance in Sierra Leone in the Areas of Civil Service Reform, Parliament and the Electoral Cycle;
Fostering Smallholder Agriculture in Sierra Leone;
Promoting Renewable Energy Services for Social Development in Sierra Leone (PRESSD-SL);
Rehabilitation of the Road from Bandajuma to the Border with Liberia;
Construction Works for the Improvement of Three Bridges;
Enhancing Cocoa, Coffee, Cashew, Horticultural Crops and Livestock Diversification, and Income Generation for Smallholder Farmers and Exports; and
The Boosting Agriculture and Food Security (BAFS) project.

Follow Kirstie and Esteban as they explore the country and discover these EU-funded projects that support local communities in building a more prosperous future for local communities. Follow their trip on@europeaid via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to the Faces2Hearts YouTube channel.

For more information about the campaign, visit the Faces2Hearts website HERE.

Background information

Faces2Hearts is a global campaign which takes 20 international vloggers to some of the most remote places in Africa, Asia and Latin America to cover EU development projects that are changing people’s lives for the better. Last year, the campaign reached over 30 million people across the globe.

Faces2Hearts is organised by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development, which aims to help end poverty and create a safer, fairer and more prosperous world for all.

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For media partnerships and more information

Yana Pargova

Faces2Hearts Team, GOPA Com.

E: yana.pargova@gopacom.eu

T: 003222343728

Follow us

Website: https://www.faces2hearts.eu/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/europeaid

Twitter: https://twitter.com/europeaid

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/europeaid/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/Faces2Hearts

Faces2Hearts 2019 | Campaign Brief

What is Faces2Hearts?

Faces2Hearts is a life-changing experience, which will take 20 enthusiastic vloggers to unusual destinations across the world to report on how the European Union is changing people’s lives for the better in partner countries around the world.

These 20 vloggers will be selected via a public competition during which they must demonstrate their passion for video, storytelling and wiliness to help change the world. The applications will be assessed in three stages: eligibility, pre-selection and final selection by a jury. The evaluation will be a mix of video originality, technical quality, personal drive, language skills and previous experience.

Local and European vloggers will be paired up to discover communities beyond faces and reveal compelling stories to the world. Their adventures will take them for one month to one of the following ten destinations: Argentina, Bhutan, Cape Verde, Jamaica, Myanmar, Namibia, Pakistan, Paraguay, Sierra Leone and The Gambia, to learn about innovative and transformative EU actions and foster cultural exchanges and human connections.

The impact of Faces2Hearts

In 2018, the first Faces2Hearts experience saw over 500 young bloggers apply and the four winners were taken on a 5-month journey across 29 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. On social media alone, this first campaign reached + 30 000 000 people and stimulated around 5 000 000 engagements. For more information visit the website and re-live the first four bloggers journeys here.

Why become a partner?

By becoming a partner of this campaign and helping to promote its values and message, you can benefit from increased visibility through a variety of means. This can include:

Association with the values of the campaign and the European Union, demonstrated through featured logo on the Faces2Hearts website, newsletter and other promotional materials
Social media interaction with the vloggers throughout their travels. These interactions can be entirely tailored and unique and range from partnering with vloggers, to setting specific challenges or bucket lists for the vloggers to complete within the scope of Faces2Hearts.
Get increased visibility worldwide and in the region by promoting this interaction with the vloggers through the intensive global outreach available through EuropeAid’s social media channels
Exclusive re-purpose of the material produced by the vloggers (i.e. articles, photos, videos) about EU-fundedl initiatives that have changed the lives of hundreds of people, communities and contribute to the development of a better society in the respective country
Opportunity to interview the vloggers and acquire exclusive material, including joining the vloggers on their fields visits
Visibility as a media partner via the Faces2Hearts project before, during and after the world leading forum for development European Development Days in 2019 and 2020.

Becoming a partner is both easy and rewarding, and means you will contribute to positive change in people’s lives. Get in touch at info@faces2hearts.eu to join the network today!

Be sure to take a look at the partners from the previous edition of Faces2Hearts below:

For partnership opportunities

Yana Pargova

Faces2Hearts Campaign Manager, GOPA Com.

E: yana.pargova@gopacom.eu

T: 0032489815891

For general queries

E: info@faces2hearts.eu

W: https://www.faces2hearts.eu/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/europeaid

Twitter: https://twitter.com/europeaid

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/europeaid/