For over 30 years HALO has run classes to teach adults and children how to stay safe in places where explosives and landmines have been left behind by conflict. Since 2022, support from Meta Platforms has revolutionised the way HALO can reach large numbers of people quickly.
HALO has operated in Ukraine since 2015. We were embedded in communities around Mariupol and Kramatorsk in the East, where we ran conventional risk education classes in schools, community centres and the places where people gather. When Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022 one of our first concerns was to hugely widen the scope of our messaging to the whole country - which was now facing an onslaught of cluster bombs, rockets, artillery and landmines.
We immediately began to deliver risk education classes in towns across the whole of the country. But we urgently needed to reach more people, more quickly than face-to-face lessons could provide. This is where the power of Meta's Facebook and Instagram platforms were so valuable.
We ran our first digital risk education campaign four days after the invasion began. That campaign was seen by 17.6 million people and delivered 51 million times onto peoples' phones and screens.
A conventional risk education class
The need for risk education can be seen in the civilian casualty statistics HALO has been tracking since February 2022. These victim points are likely to be considerably under-reported, especially in areas controlled by Russia.
Meta Platforms immediately recognised the importance of HALO's risk education work and offered us access to advertising credits to support our campaigns, as well as training to support our targeting of priority audiences who were at heightened risk from unexploded ordnance and landmines.
Meta's support in the spring and summer of 2022 allowed HALO to develop specific campaigns on Facebook and Instagram that raised awareness of the dangers of explosives in buildings, around vehicles and in relation to booby-trapped toys. In total 15.2 million Ukrainians saw these initial warning films, which were watched 120 million times.
HALO has been able to use Meta's support to responsively target audiences, such as mushroom pickers or tourists, that are seasonal priorities. A major audience has been farmers, as HALO's research identified a high risk of anti-vehicles mines to farmers returning to plough and plant seeds for the first time after conflict. This audiences was crucial given the importance of Ukraine as one of the globe's great grain producers. In all 6.1 million Ukrainians in rural areas saw our campaign about dangers on farms and 2.5 million saw our mushroom pickers' campaign. HALO was also able to react quickly to events - such running a campaign to warn of mines moving after the flooding caused by the destruction of Kakhovka Dam in June 2023.
Risk Education Campaign Assets
In total, Meta Platforms $200,000 of advertising credits allowed HALO to reach 27.9 million Ukrainians – three quarters of the population living outside of Russian-controlled areas.
In addition to risk education messages, HALO has been able to use Meta's support to run an advertising campaign to recruit new staff to clear landmines laid in huge numbers in Mykolaiv and Kharkhiv regions of Ukraine. A remarkable 50,000 people clicked on the link to learn more about working for HALO during the recruitment campaign.
