Lyfta is 5!

Since this defining experience in the school in Ipswich, we have built and strengthened our collection of interactive and immersive spaces. We now have 40 storyworlds from around the world, 18 of which have been launched in the last year, and we have an exciting programme of new content being released each term.

In November 2020 we launched our Neighbourhood Docs initiative, a new open call for films from around the world. As well as showing diverse narratives through our content, we want diversity of voices and perspectives when it comes to who tells those stories. We have had an amazing response since November and now have storyworlds in production in Kenya, South Korea, China, The Philippines, Sweden, Pakistan and Norway. Watch this space!

Lyfta has evolved from four initial founders to a team of 30 based in the UK, Helsinki, and France. You can meet some of them through our Meet the Team series.

We are fortunate to work with an absolutely phenomenal group of people and regularly speak about this with each other. We are so, so grateful - for our colleagues, our investors and our advisers. Everyone who has joined Lyfta has done so because they believe in our mission and each one has a strong desire to make a difference in the world. Empathy, honesty, transparency and creativity have been identified by our team as some of our key lived values. We are also on the lookout for new colleagues, so if you'd like to join us on our journey, keep an eye on our jobs page.

We are pleased to have been a key specialist CPD delivery provider on the Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning (CCGL) programme over the last year. This exciting programme is a jointly funded partnership between the British Council and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). Through this valuable initiative we have been able to provide free training and access to Lyfta for hundreds of state-funded schools across the UK. Over the last year, over 90% of teachers that have participated in our course have rated it extremely or very valuable; a statistic that our whole team sees as testament to our commitment and focus on quality and impact.

Lyfta was created with the desire to inspire future generations to make a positive impact in the world through uplifting human stories, and we have been working hard over the last few years with our teacher community towards this shared purpose.

Today, we can say that we have:

Throughout 2020, our engagement team has been busy supporting Lyfta users to get the most from the platform with valuable weekly content and resources around key dates such as Mental Health Week, Earth Day, Fairtrade Fortnight and Anti-Bullying Week, as well as around important themes across the year like diversity, equity and inclusion, biodiversity, sustainability and how to bring PSHE and RSHE to life. We are delighted with the feedback we have on these resources and are glad to be able to support teachers to use Lyfta to engage meaningfully with important topics across the whole year.

Our team has come together to help us navigate the difficulties and uncertainty of the last year. We have created a host of new content and resources during this time, along with continuous technical development and evolution of our platform to better support our community. The improvements we have made to date are thanks to the expertise we are lucky enough to have in-house; in technology, education, filmmaking, design and innovation, and the feedback we receive from our educator colleagues in the wider Lyfta community. Your stories and feedback, shared so generously, give us the energy and desire to keep on keeping on and striving to improve our offering. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to our wonderful Lyfta community for the passion and energy you bring to your work. Educators really are special, we knew this already, of course, but the last year has really highlighted what an incredible job educators do each and every day, helping to support and nurture empathy and positive values in young people, to give them a strong foundation for their futures. There is no other community we would rather be working with and serving.

Our desire to inspire and empower teachers and children to grasp their role in building a fairer, more sustainable world is stronger than ever. Our vision is that by the time a child completes their education, they will have been to every country in the world, having experienced real human stories in each place they visited. They'll have seen numerous life situations, jobs, skills, values, perspectives - all at play in the real world. We've made large strides towards our mission in this strangest of all years, and we are really excited to see what the next year brings.