In September 2016, the world's leaders gathered at the United Nations in New York to discuss solutions to the global refugee and migrant crisis. One of UNICEF's main goals was to remind them that over half of the refugees in the world right now are children, and that this crisis is first and foremost a children's crisis.
To raise awareness on social media and especially on Instagram, UNICEF reached out to some of the biggest illustrators on the channel. We asked them: What is your wish for refugee and migrant children? Many answered the call, among them industry hotshots like Jean Jullien who has over half a million followers and usually works for outlets like The Guardian and brands like Nike, and Christoph Niemann who regularly draws the covers of The New Yorker. Many of them took personal interest in the issue and shared their thoughts along the way. To take the idea further, we asked our audience to come up with their own artwork, using the hashtag #illustrators4children.
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive with hundreds of amateur and professional illustrators joining in and sharing their artworks on Instagram. In the gallery below you can see some of those we liked most. Choosing a unique hashtag (#illustrators4children) proved to be key in tracking the contributions. However, many artists chose to add some of our other hashtags too, like #childrenfirst, #childrenuprooted or simply #unicef, which made us very happy.Creative Blog "it'snicethat" picked up the story and further spread the message.
