Borderfree, The Voice of Thousands and Schwizerchruz: advert-body-1 by Jung von Matt

There are currently 60 million displaced people around the world. People who are stigmatised with a single word: refugee. Because the term is frequently associated with criminality, violence and poverty, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that these people led very normal lives before they were forced to flee their homes. It is for this very reason that the Swiss NGO The Voice Of Thousands has launched Project Life Jacket with the support of borderfree and schwizerchrüz.ch. The project is being sponsored and supported by organisations and associations from across Europe.

The project is based on a powerful, emotional idea: “We visited people in transit camps in Greece who had fled from Syria and drew the life stories of nine individuals on the life jackets that they had worn when they crossed the sea”, explains Michael Grossenbacher, the joint initiator of Project Life Jacket and Co-President of The Voice Of Thousands. The drawings bear witness to how these people lived before the wars, before they ever put on a life jacket and before they carried the stigma of being “refugees”. This message is conveyed with great effect in a short documentary film, on the life jackets bearing the drawings and on the interactive platform www.projectlifejacket.com.