Campanie
General Information:
Strategic approach:
| Strategic approach: |
This is the story about how the unspoken turns into drama. Above anything else, all of us are parents or siblings and we would do anything to protect our kids. In Romania, that means anything but talk to them about sex. Kids are considered too young to understand, while parents don’t know how to address the topic. Parents leave their kids to find this out on their own just like the former generations. Child Helpline is the only Romanian NGO answering children’s calls on their most sensitive issues, including sexual abuse. The NGO created the only free helpline for minors collecting stories & solving cases 24/7. Unfortunately, their limited resources were never enough to turn sex abuse into a mainstream issue. The reality is that 1 in 5 kids falls victim to sexual abuse & 90% never report the abuse to any authority. Neither parents or media talk about it. At all. Assaulted children suffer in silence because of all the shame, guilt, fear and confusion they feel, while society turns a blind eye. STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS CHALLENGE: At minimum costs, warn & educate about child sexual abuse, making it a topic for 2021 and beyond. To help the children we had to actually catch the attention of their parents, teachers, witnesses, classmates and random bystanders - potential ALLIES who should believe them, who should give a victim a voice when needed - THE SILENCE BREAKERS Child Helpline was set to equip them with the necessary knowledge to recognize and validate any child sexual abuse they might notice. To educate together with the Romanian Police on the vital importance of reporting. To win their trust that silence is not a viable alternative. Sadly, the end of another COVID year would find everyone already fed up with social causes competing for their attention. A predictable pattern of NGO+authorities communication style would definitely not be enough. Although for their own good, we addressed a hard-to-surprise audience, to say the least. Also, The Romanian Police workforce, media outlets, other NGOs, politicians, sponsors, and all stakeholders who had to collaborate on a vital topic for the sake of our children - THE GAMECHANGERS But in a world prematurely evaluated as “post-pandemic” by most, these game-changers were focused more on economic resilience & recovery for later, promoting almost toxic optimism and trying to force life back on track. In this scenery, we decided to break the ice and start Child Helplines first campaign on this topic. OBJECTIVES: RAISE AWARENESS FOR CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE AS A DISTINCT AND ACUTE ISSUE TO ACT UPON IN ROMANIA Increase awareness about the phenomenon of sexual abuse on children without media budget - this was our brief. We had no benchmarks for this type of activity because the NGO had never campaigned on this topic before, no influencer „friends” of the client or the agency, no media connections, only our creativity and grit. We only knew we can reduce abuse by educating silence breakers and winning as many change-makers as possible. And that more allies could mean less potential victims. GENERATE FREE MEDIA AND PROBONO CONTRIBUTORS Child Helpline was never a big budget NGO and all its resources had to be used for the organization’s survival = keeping alive the call center line for children. Our campaign was mandatory to happen only by the power of emotional persuasion and probono contributions (100% normal conditions the wide majority of nonprofit communications in Romania). Our strategy was to assert the negative impact of undesired touching behavior. The key was borrowing focus from the positive emotions brought by tender caresses and using it to sanction the abusive ones – as they both have a crucial impact on a child’s life. We showed people that WANTED OR NOT, EVERY TOUCH BECOMES AN IRREVERSIBLE PART OF EVERY HUMAN LIFE. |
Execution:
| Images: |
|
| Video Link: |
