Afghanistan Mine Safety

Landmines and Explosive Ordinance is a huge problem in parts of Afghanistan and people, especially children, need to be aware of the danger signs. With many people at risk of explosive ordinance while living their daily lives, we created a series of videos aimed at children to help promote awareness and safe behaviour when in these dangerous locales to help save lives and keep people safe. With three different age groups to hit and with a serious topic to discuss, we were tasked with making an approachable, relatable, and engaging video series that could be shared for each of the age ranges. We had to design creative ways to tell the information in a child-friendly manner while keeping the overall messages the same. In this way, each video meets the maturity of the age group in both illustrative style and message delivery, from a talking bird for young kids to two siblings discussing EOs while undertaking a responsibility for their family. With the messaging clear and the stories age appropriate, the videos were a success in distilling the incredibly important messaging to a vulnerable demographic of people.

Ensuring our messaging was clear was at the forefront to every creative decision we made for this project. The information in the films can potentially save lives, so we needed to make sure the audience could easily understand the information and use it in a practical way. The next step was finding a way to make the messaging engaging for different age groups so younger children didn’t get bored and older kids wouldn’t feel patronised. We designed the characters to suit a particular audience, with the younger kids getting a talking bird warning them of the dangers of mines and explosives, and the older teenager being shown something more akin to their everyday lives as they undertake more responsibility. By keeping the illustrations, story, and characters grounded in Afghan culture, the videos would become more relatable and, therefore, ensure more people took the information to heart. The problem was coming up with enough ideas that would captivate the audience but not distract them from the key messaging. By having each video take place as a conversation, it encourages listening to the messages and talking about them with friends and family.