Ads We Like: World Food Programme represents silenced voices of starving children
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and SAWA, the Global Cinema Advertising Association have returned with ‘Feed Our Future’ – an initiative that aims to stir global cinema audiences into action to tackle global hunger.
UN
Last year, the two launched 'Feed Our Future', which highlighted the fact that every five seconds a child dies unnecessarily from hunger, as well as representing the silenced voices of starving children worldwide.
Featuring leading names from the film, advertising and humanitarian worlds, the campaign film depicted a bustling news conference with journalists vying to interview the recipient, Miriam, of a breakthrough medical research award.
As the short film progresses, the journalists learn from Miriam that ultimately there was no medical breakthrough, with the chilling conclusion revealing that the young woman in question died of hunger when she was eight years old.
The spot was conceived by Sir John Hegarty, who has returned again this year alongside the director Nick Gordon.
Airing in cinemas in more than 30 countries from September, ‘Feed Our Future’ seeks to highlight the potential that is lost every time a child dies of hunger.
The new film is set in a war-torn country, that is a crumbled shell of what it used to be. Piles of rubble dominate the landscape, and whatever walls there are left, precariously look like they will crumble at any moment.
Within this ‘playground’ of destruction, children stand firmly upon the fragile ground singing the words of Cat Stevens ballad ‘How can I tell you’ in eerie unison.
One by one, the children begin to disappear, weakening the song, which wavers after each voice is silenced in loss.
The film concludes with a lone child staring at the camera. She continues the song alone, “It always ends up to one thing, when I look and you’re not there.”
The spot ends with the disturbing reminder that every year, three million children die of hunger, before asking the audience to ‘help keep their voices alive.’
“Last year, we saw the impact movie audiences can have when they are moved by compassion and urgency to help achieve a world without hunger,” said David Beasley, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme.
“Thanks to the continued support from SAWA and the Global Cinema Advertising Companies, we believe even more people will be motivated this year to join the cause and help ensure that no children no longer have to worry where their next meal will come from."
