A large death counter has been placed in a prominent place in, 3 dimensional virtual world ‘Second Life’ by global anti-poverty campaigners the World Development Movement (WDM). The digital counter records the number of children who have died as a result of preventable global poverty since Second Life was founded. The figure currently stands at over thirty six million, one hundred and eighty seven thousand. The organisation has already started a group in Second Life and plans to hold public meetings on global poverty issues. WDM is the first campaigning organisation to establish a permanent presence in Second Life.

Peter Taylor, Web Officer at WDM said:

“Millions of people are now spending more and more of their time in Second Life or similar virtual environments. We are here to remind them that they can’t escape the problems of the real world.

“One child dies unnecessarily of poverty every three seconds. That’s a crime – a crime committed by those wealthy and powerful enough to prevent it. We need to keep up the pressure on the governments of the wealthy nations to deliver real change for the world’s poor. Having a presence in Second Life is just one way of helping us get this message out to everyone who needs to hear it.”

The World Development Movement is calling on Second Lifers to join the online group to help campaign for an end to global poverty and a cut in carbon emissions by rich country governments.



1. A screen grab of WDM’s death counter and Land is available from:  http://www.wdm.org.uk/deathcounter/

2. To locate WDM’s land in Second Life go to:
 http://slurl.com/secondlife/Warmouth/6.38507/210.808