Hole

Background

The UNHCR (Office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees) exists to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. Its mandate is to lead and co-ordinate international aid to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide.

The largest refugee camp in the world is Dadaab, in Kenya, with some 262,000 displaced persons, mostly from Somalia though there are other refugees from Sudan, Uganda and Congo.

Increased violence in Somalia has led to as many as 1,000 new refugees arriving per day – at a time when heavy flooding has affected as many as 100,000 people.

Idea

The refugees in Dadaab need almost anything you can think of. Food, medicine, shelter, water, sanitation, education. The most basic of necessities of life are missing from their lives.

The creative approach was to show literally what it means when the basics are missing. There are holes in people’s lives. So in both the letter and the envelope a hole was created in the precise position where help is most needed. Over the water supply on the outer and over a tent on the letter.

Results

At this stage, UNCHR are prepared only to say that this mailing led to “far bigger donations” than the average of previous mailshots.

Our Thoughts

This isn’t the most amazing piece of creative work you’ve ever seen but in this sector, NGO’s looking to both educate and raise funds, it has the merit of being different. It’s not an appeal for money but an appeal to fill in the missing pieces.

If you can make people feel they are creating solutions rather than just giving money, that has to be a more powerful message, surely?

I like the fact that the mailing looks different too in that it simply has a damn great hole in it. It captures interest. Gets the recipient to want to have a look, at least.

Well done everyone for trying to do what a hundred other organisations are trying to do, but doing it differently.