Child soldier. Some words don’t belong together.

Cool, simple and effective! How more straight to the point can it be?

This short video that was made for War Child UK pro-bono by Ogilvy. It’s aimed at highlighting how children are often recruited as soldiers by rebel groups because they’re easier to manipulat/drug/exploit and they have a a lesser developed sense of fear and danger.
And most important, it is a fundraising campaign.
“Text ‘GUNS25 £2’ to 70070.”

Update: Warchild UK sent us some gorgeous print ads from the same campaign. See below.

A tweet can change everything #actionsahel

This is a new campaign from the French Action contre la Faim (ACF - Action against Hunger). It is for the devastating situation in the Sahel again.
Over 15 million people are food insecure and nearly 3 million children are threatened by acute malnutrition.

To make the people of France aware of the situation ACF use the tagline “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”.
And for the campaign they use various items like print ads, outdoor ads, web banners, Facebook and a web video. But the two most notable items are the tweet and guerrilla action.

ACF asked to use the hashtag #actionsahel to spread the word. This webpage, with some French celebs, bloggers and media channels, is available for making it more powerful. From the webpage is possible to send a tweet to one or more of the mentioned persons. It looks like this:
“@FredCavazza: 15 millions de personnes en danger de mort au #Sahel. Aidez-les à ne pas sombrer dans l’oubli #actionsahel @ACF_France”

On Saturday May 19 all solidarity tweets reveal on a giant billboard. This panel will be visible on the European Night of Museums, at the Cité des Science in Paris.

Pressure Change with the Mother’s Night Belly Band

This is a new campaign from Mother’s Night (Moedernacht) which launches on Mother’s Day. The organization is a partnership of a number of European non-profits. Their aim is to create awareness of the unnecessary number of deaths that occur during childbirth in developing countries.

As the agency behind the campaign told me: “Designer Claudy Jongstra was asked to breath new life into the ugly duckling of pregnant women’s fashion: the bellyband”. The result is the ‘MotherBand’, a fashionable bellyband whose name purposely references the strong connection between mothers the world over.

The idea behind the campaign is to create an incentive to spread the message in a viral way. Mother’s Night is giving away the MotherBand to one lucky mother-to-be. Website visitors are ask to send a message with the name of a friend by filling in a form. Easy and smart.

“If even a fraction of fashionable women pick up and pass on the MotherBand to their friends, our organizations will be able to more effectively do what we do best: to put pressure on policymakers to take even more steps to save women’s lives,” says Dionne Veldman, director of RutgersWPF, on behalf of all the participating organizations.

African men would like you to stop pitying them

I love this video. Hosted by Mama Hope as part of their “Stop the Pity” campaign, it features four guys from Kenya — Gabriel, Benard, Brian and Derrik — who are sick and tired of the way Africans are portrayed in movies, in the media — and even in social campaigns.

According to mamahope.org:

“The Kenyan men in this video told us they wanted to make one that pokes fun at the way African men are portrayed in Hollywood films and the media. They said, “’f people believed only what they saw in movies, they would think we are all warlords who love violence.’ They, like Mama Hope, are tired of the over-sensationalized, one-dimensional depictions of African men and the white savior messaging that permeates our media. They wanted to tell their own stories instead, so we handed them the mic and they made this video.

Here is Mama Hope’s manifesto (or “mamafesto”?)

Mama Hope challenges the conventional approach to development.  Our model, the Connected Development Model, is a consultative, bottom-up approach composed of three key phases: Listen, Connect and Enable.

LISTEN
Projects are identified by the community. Our partners are already well aware of what they need, so the first thing we do is listen. Together with the community we develop a project proposal that allows them to implement a custom solution for their individual needs.

CONNECT
We use all available tools to raise the funds needed to complete specific projects. Project sponsors range from foundations and corporations to individuals. We also leverage technology, social media and basic human connection to build momentum around each project.

ENABLE
Projects involve 100% use of locally supplied materials and labor. Our keep-it-local approach creates jobs and stimulates local economies while reducing environmental impact. Local designs and materials make operation, maintenance, and repair possible without outside assistance. The result is a sincere sense of community dedication that is essential for lasting success and true sustainability.

We recognize that each community has distinctive needs and requires a unique solution. Connected Development means striking a dynamic balance between support, sustainability and self-sufficiency.

It’s quite refreshing, after all the controversy of Kony 2012, to hear Africans telling their own stories.

It also reminds me of what the Burundi Film Center, the not-for-profit media training initiative my colleague Christopher helped start, is trying to do.

Thanks to Audra for sharing.

UPDATE: In the comments below, a blogger from “Africa is a Country” has a very different take on the video.

The whole post is worth reading, but here’s the meat (to me):

“People might want to see this video as a counterpoint to Kony2012, and it’s of course nothing like as egregious, but I’m not sure exactly how far we can move away from the Invisible Children with a video by Joe Sabia (who directs the Mama Hope stuff). Sabia is another Silicone Valley, TED-talking master of viral narrative, which seems to boil down to not much more than a heavily concentrated dose of American sentimentality, however that sentiment is directed. Mama Hope is another white-staffed NGO run out of California. They are doing something very different by attempting to engage very broad cultural currents (as opposed to, say, organising the world’s most self-congratulatory wild-goose chase in Central African Republic), but that’s not without its problems.”

Which is an important point — western hands are all over this effort, too.

I do still like the video, though. It seems too awkward, to me, to be contrived. It really seems like an authentic effort by these four guys to tell their story. But I could be wrong. I just blogged it because it hit me just the right way.

ActionAid Drive Aid

Great guerrilla idea from ActionAid UK – take the biofuel lobby’s message to the streets to expose its absurdity. As ever, it’s all in the execution. Link to petition here

Suffer in silence

The number of street children is increasing day by day, fighting for survival in an uncaring and hostile environment. All these children have lost their parental love and affection. There is no one to look after them… This heartbreaking video shows a Child telling us his life story in Pantomime. (more after the break)

The World Walks for Water and Sanitation #worldwaterday

Not a very exiting video for World Water Day but I like the cause and it is important to share.
It is from World Walks for Water and Sanitation, a mass global movement demanding action to address the world’s largest crisis - water and sanitation.

I’m curious of such videos still be effective in all abundance of modern media.

Move it with €2

Nice fundraising tool from Germany placed at the Hamburg Airport. It is made for MISEREOR. They call it a poster. I don’t how I would call it but I love the interactive part.
Donate € 2 and everything is going to move. The poster makes a photo also from the donor. The photo is also visible at the MISEREOR Facebook app.

It isn’t the first donation poster made by agency Kolle Rebbe. They did it before for MISEREOR in 2009.

MISEREOR was founded in 1958 as an agency “against hunger and disease in the world”. In its capacity as the overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Germany, it offers to cooperate in a spirit of partnership with all people of goodwill to promote development, fight worldwide poverty, liberate people from injustice, exercise solidarity with the poor and the persecuted, and help create “One World”.

More campaigns from MISEREOR:
- Courage in action - Mut zu Taten
- Falling letters
- Drive the Mobilombo
- War leaves many scars

The world’s worst web site hawks “Sweet Norwegian Deals”

The following screencap cannot even begin to capture the almost physical assault on the senses committed by this travesty of web design:

You’ll have to experience it here. (And please come back afterwards!)

Don’t worry, nobody is that bad a web designer. This is an online campaign by Norwegian Church Aid, and it’s this way on purpose.

My Norwegian is a little rusty, and Google Translate can only do so much with this. Fortunately, the International Action Network on Small Arms provides the following explanation:

“Sweet Norwegian Deals” is a new campaign by the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) which highlights how Norwegian export policy, particularly on arms and ammunition, is contributing to poverty and under-development. NCA calls on the Norwegian government to review their arms export policy, enforce end user agreements on all transfers, and support an Arms Trade Treaty to prevent Norwegian arms from fuelling conflict and being used in serious human rights violations.

Norway is a major arms exporter to the developing world, and apparently the site is an attempt to shame the government into adopting a more socially responsible trade policy, rather than treating weapons like just another of the nations commodity goods (such as oil, fish and cheese).

Good cause, but still… ouch!

Thanks to Osocio reader Sindre Olav Edland-Gryt for the tip.

Unborn Artists Raise Funds for Togo

This is one of the strangest fundraising campaigns I ever saw. Pregnant Belgium women use their belly to make paintings for SOS Children’s Villages (SOS Kinderdorpen).
Infant and child mortality in Togo is very high. As early as the pregnancy, mothers have to fight for their unborn child’s chances of survival. That’s why the organization has set up mother-child clinics to help them.

The work of the Unborn Artists is used to raise funds to support the clinics in Togo.
Brussels-based artist Isabelle de Borchgrave is the godmother of the project. She exhibits the collection in her gallery.

SOS children’s villages also provides do-it-yourself-packs for mothers who want to make an artwork with their unborn baby, at home. The do-it-yourself packs are being sold online, in hospitalshops and at several gynaecology practices.

“Thousands of unborn babies do not survive their own birth. This number needs to go down. Belgian unborn babies support African unborn babies.”

The Unborn Artists campaign website.

See the video after the break.