Pinterest has over 11 million users, pinning ‘wishlists’ of everything from designer fashions to must-have gadgets. We spotted an opportunity to shake up this community.

We created the profile of a 13 year old girl from Sierra Leone and filled her board with much more urgent needs - food, water and a decent education.

We created the profile of a real 13 year old girl from Sierra Leone called Ami Musa and filled her Pinterest board with the things she wanted. In contrast to other people’s pins, her items were much more urgent. Food, water, a decent education – the basics of life. The actual objects were visually the opposite of what you’d normally see pinned on Pinterest; a slightly rusty bucket, a single blackboard, a basic pair of shoes.

As news about her spread through websites, blogs and especially Twitter, she built up a substantial following on Pinterest itself.

The campaign was seen by millions of people around the world and each of Ami’s items been repinned over 100 times, exposing it to 3,673,268 Pinterest users (and counting).

The campaign was picked up by Mashable, the Guardian, Fast Company to name just a few. It has also been heralded by social media consultancies on LinkedIn as a case study on how NGOs can use platforms like Pinterest for best effect.