During the United Nations’ 70th General Assembly last week, the U.N. attempted to bridge the gap between world leaders and Syrian refugees with a mix of virtual reality, documentary-style videos and good, old-fashioned conversation. It’s an example of modern storytelling on one of the world’s biggest stages that tech-minded marketers could learn from.

Past security checks and inside the United Nations’ New York headquarters, a pop-up digital portal transported thousands of U.N. delegates, staff and visitors to the Za’atari refugee camp near the Jordan-Syria border. The experience utilized Samsung’s Gear VR headset and essentially came in two parts: a film and a talk.

Gabo Arora, a senior advisor at the United Nations Millennium Campaign, partnered with filmmaker Chris Milk to produce Clouds Over Sidra, a nine-minute film about a 12-year-old girl named Sidra. Her family lives in the Za’atari camp, where more than 80,000 of the roughly 4 million displaced Syrians now reside after fleeing their country’s five-year civil war.