This anthem features some of the most oppressed children in the world - those often forced to serve as child soldiers, labourers, and brides - rising above these dire conditions and standing up to their oppression. As we see the young, defiant expressions of the child heroes, powerful slam poetry reinforces their defiance. Punctuated by hard-hitting prose like: “Our lives are worth more than the pennies we’re paid, our lives are worth more than the clothing we made, our lives are worth more than the guns and grenades, our lives are worth more than just dying from AIDS” and “we’re not your cheap labour, we’re not your child brides, we’re not just poor kids with some flies in our eyes”, we bring the first Child Uprising to life.

Children are the most vulnerable group of people in the world. For many, their futures are limited by violence, illiteracy, and inequality. While the stats may seem difficult to believe, the reality is that 150 million boys and girls are engaged in child labour worldwide, 37,000 girls become child brides every day, and there are an estimated 300,000 child soldiers across the globe. But Right To Play empowers millions of children to rise above this oppression and these dire statistics. To show the world how powerful their work is, we created an Uprising that had never been seen before: The Child Uprising.

To show the world how Right To Play empowers children to rise above the most dire conditions imaginable, we brought The Child Uprising to life by showing our hero children as powerful and defiant uprisers. With this in mind, the video was shot with heroic slow-motion portraits mixed with gut-wrenching environmental shots, showcasing the children’s defiant expressions and complementing the powerful voiceover. Each scenario is horrifyingly authentic to the harrowing realities real children face every day. Pacing plays a big role in establishing the different scenarios and showing the children rising above them. The first half of the video uses a mix of slow motion and slow-panning wide shots; as the pace picks up and the children become more empowered and defiant, we transition to medium and tight portrait shots to convey the fervent determination in their eyes.