Campaign 2007: Helping to Make Kids Stronger
‘Helping to Make Kids Stronger’ was the motto of Caritas’ nationwide campaign for 2007. The campaign’s aim was to support young people who are socially and economically disadvantaged.
More than 1.9 million children and adolescents under the age of 15 live in poverty in Germany. They lack education and have poor health. They are also very likely to face continuing uncertainty and/or poverty as adults. Disadvantaged children lead difficult lives. Their experience teaches them to look at the world in a certain way. And yet they are capable of finding within themselves previously unknown strength and a will to make things better. To do this, they need people who help to make them stronger, who believe in them, give them courage, support them and help them to develop their talents.
Believing in Children
Caritas promoted just that in a nationwide poster campaign. The posters featured children acting out their powers and strengths as superheroes. They demonstrated the childlike imagination which allows them to overcome difficult situations and to believe in themselves. They are able to leap from disadvantage to hope in a single bound. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel found the posters inspiring, saying: ‘I especially like the princess. She has self-confidence and says, “I can do many things, just give me the chance!” This offers a glimpse of an ideal of humanity that unites us all. It is an ideal of humanity built on subsidiarity. It works to make the smaller units stronger – starting with families – and offers help when families aren’t able to provide what kids need.’
Advocacy Campaign for Young People
Our campaign was well-received in the media, and our TV advertisement was broadcast more than 1,700 times, free of charge. It was also shown as a cinema commercial. Caritas associations and centres used the campaign as a platform to raise awareness of the situation of disadvantaged children in their centres and communities. They organised church services, debates between politicians and/or experts, fundraisers and children’s events. The caritas organisations also launched a number of initiatives and issued statements. One of their goals was to expand child care services and improve the quality of child care in Germany. Caritas campaigned for making education work better and for eradicating poverty by attacking its structural causes.