With every powerful people’s movement for change, a symbol emerges--an image that can change the world. For the Iranian democracy movement, that image is of Neda, the 26 year old Iranian young woman struck down by a bullet to the heart.
Last week, her devastated family was ordered by the Iranian regime to bury her quietly and without circumstance.
Avaaz.org wants you to send a message of commemoration and solidarity by buying a t-shirt. Proceeds will go to support projects that enable Iranians to freely access the internet.

CEDC, the Center for Educational Design and Communication, helped Avaaz with the design of a t-shirt concept.

Avaaz is also doing fundraising for bandwidth for Iranians to send hundreds of secure emails. 

A mobile campaign to encourage and celebrate recycling was created earlier this year through a joint initiative in Philadelphia. Students involved in the Mural Arts Programme produced the painted wraps for each of the 10 trucks – inspired by global textiles from the collection of the local university’s Design Centre. The whole campaign tied in with the launch of a single-stream recycling program in the city which enables all recyclable material to be deposited via one receptacle.

Rubbish never looked so good!

What a great way to spread the word for a library!
In Kansas City USA Johnson County Library couriers are making their book deliveries between Library locations in some specially decorated, literary-themed trucks: Captain Ahab’s Fine Seafood, Benjamin Button’s Diaper Service, Kafka’s Pest Control, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s Pharmacy with the tag line “Available at Johnson County Library.” The messages on the trucks are part of campaign to promote the library, the many stories that can be found there and to encourage reading, even the classics.

The March 18 Movement was born out of a tragedy. On this day in 2009, Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, Iranian blogger and journalist, died in Evin Prison in Tehran. The December before his death, he was sentenced to two and half years in prison for allegedly insulting religious leaders, and engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Omid Reza was the first blogger to die in prison and his death reveals that getting censored is far from the worst thing that can happen to a blogger.

The March 18 Movement aims not only to make sure that Omid Reza is remembered, but also that other persecuted bloggers around the world do not disappear into interrogation rooms and prison cells. The March 18 Movement would like to become a voice for bloggers everywhere who are in risk of being crushed under the heavy machinery of repression.

“Let the first blogger to die in prison be the last.”

Thanks Ali from Free Lantern for the tip.

“Young workers watch the movement. Raise your hand for safer workplaces across BC.”

Raise You Hand is a brand new campaign from WorkSafeBC dedicated to promote workplace health and safety for the workers and employers in British Columbia, Canada.

Raise Your Hand is a young worker movement focused around worker rights: the right to know about hazards at your job and how to protect yourself, the right to participate in making sure your job and workplace are safe and healthy, the right to the right to refuse unsafe work. Unlike many young worker safety campaigns, which take a ‘shock and awe’ approach to scare young workers from being unsafe on the job, Raise Your Hand focuses on the positive steps young workers can take to prevent injury and death at work.
Driven by the insight that many young workers don’t know what to do when faced with an unsafe situation, this movement shares that the first step is to know your rights, and the way to find out about your rights is to ask. The idea of raising your hand is inspired by the fact that many young workers have recently left school, or may still be in a school environment where you raise your hand to find answers to what you don’t know.

The campaign is found where the target audience – youth aged 18-25 – gather, at summer festivals and online.  Key elements of the campaign are the Raise Your Hand anthem (see above) and buttons that people can customize and either wear or create digital versions to put online. The creative theme is inspired by 70s movements – psychedelic album covers, peace, love.
The 70’s inspiration came about because of the affiliation of grassroots movement with that decade. RYH is very much about empowerment and participation to join this movement to make a difference.

The poster, titled “It Happens When Nobody Is Watching,” has been criticized for its being one of a kind (as opposed to a full campaign) and accused of pandering for an award (which it won).  Berliners, be on the watch, this poster is displayed at a bus stop in your city.  Have you seen it?  What do others think of its efficacy?

The Ask Yourself campaign from Dropping Knowledge is a series of over 100 digital postcards which promote dialogue on social themes of global significance. Answers can be added as comments by clicking on the postcards and each card can be shared through dragging and dropping into emails. Registered users are encouraged to pose questions as well. See more below.

Q&A at its best: participatory, provocative and pertinent.

To encourage people to wash their hands with soap after using the toilet, posters made of soap paper were put up outside toilets across VietNam.

Soap paper is paper that’s coated with soap on both sides and can be used to wash hands like regular soap.
The campaign is an initiative from The World Bank and the Ministry of Health in Vietnam.

“This poster is made of soap.
Use it to wash your hands.”

PETA style! To promote the new campaign of Dutch non-profit organization ‘Animals Awake’, Dutch creative production house created a viral campaign that caused quite a stir. Ancilla Tilia, well known festish model, Playmate and elected Most Sexy Vegetarian, promised to strip down naked for the good cause on Monday 22 June. The show was announced on a lot of blogs, radioshows, Facebook, Twitter and online magazines.

At said time, a sexy stripshow started, where Ancilla seductively started taking off her clothes. Untill a man in fishermans clothing (played by a wellknown Dutch comedian), stepped out from the audience, knocked her down with a big hook and started to ‘stripping her alive’. With this campaign, Animals Awake wants to raise awareness that millions of fish are being skinned and stripped from their organs while still alive, while its proven that fish can feel distress and even pain.

The website was visited over 50,000 times in the first days and the film was downloaded over 10,000 times in the first few hours.

They have one poster (see left, click to enlarge), and they like it, but some people think it looks like it’s advertising a remake of Sleeper, by Woody Allen.

Bike for Bibles originated in 1984 in Australia with three cyclists, and it now takes place in many countries, including Canada. Money to provide Bibles is raised through the sponsorship of cyclists.
The 2009 Bike for Bibles ride will be in support of Scripture resources for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. The Canadian Bible Society will be distributing New Testaments, the Gospel of Mark, and the Book of Hope youth magazine to thousands of people at the games.

This video isn’t highschool creativity but cycling is my first love…
(Thx @gibarra)

A Silver Lion at Cannes for these three pieces of art from Greenpeace.
“Every signature helps save our seas.”

Holstee is an initiative by New York-based innovation lab Incubaker. It produces a line of eco-friendly and socially conscious t-shirts with unique signature holster pockets made of vibrantly patterned fabric.

“It is our intention to broaden the expectation of what it means to be sustainable. Humanitarian Sustainability is a large factor in all Holstee products – 100% of our proceeds are used to empower entrepreneurs and dreamers in extreme poverty around the world.  By partnering with Kiva ... non-profit, micro lending venture, Holstee will be able to directly connect with such entrepreneurs.”

To get in on their cause-related mission you don’t need to give the shirt off your back – you need to buy one!

Nice idea in this video from Brazil made for Multishow, the national entertainment TV network.
Global warming makes the world smaller and smaller.

“Global warming. When you feel it, it’s already too late.”

Ad from LILA, Lega Italiana per la Lotta contro l’Aids, the Italian info organisation fighting Aids/HIV. HIV isn’t a life sentence. Being HIV positive is not a criminal offense. Governments must focus on education and prevention of the disease rather than repress.
Art Director/Copywriter: Andrea Castelletti; Photographer: Matteo Engolli.

“It could happen to everyone, don’t discriminate.”

Older campaigns from LILA at their website.

Ad from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council). FSC is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests.
Established in 1993 as a response to concerns over global deforestation, FSC is widely regarded as one of the most important initiatives of the last decade to promote responsible forest management worldwide.
The FSC label provides a credible link between responsible production and consumption, enabling consumers and businesses to make purchasing decisions that benefit people and the environment as well as providing ongoing business value.

This is a new campaign for Misereor Hilfswerk in Germany.
Passers-by can make a 50-cent donation by trowing coins into a slot in the poster. Measurement units on the cylinder of the syringe show how many coins already have been donated and how many injestions can be paid for. Misereor is helping with vaccinating children around the world.

“SAVE LIVES WITH 50 Cents!
Your donation sponsors a vaccination in Latin America, Asia or Afrika.
Thank you for your help”

Related Misereor post: War leaves many scars

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Ok ok awards can’t feed the hungry but some of the winners at the Cannes Lions are too special not to blog about.
Tonight The Great Schlep campaign from the Jewish Council for Education and Research won a Cyber Lion. Sarah Silverman tells, in this campaign from 2008, the Jewish grandparents to vote for Barack Obama. Old Floridian Jews are the most important demographic in the presidential election. They make up about 5% of the voters in a swing state with 27 electoral college votes.
Read more about the background in this article from the Los Angeles Times.

Awarded with 3 Lions at Cannes Lions 2009 (Gold, Silver and Bronze) by Leo Burnett to Portuguese Red Cross.