The campaign “Territórios do Cuidado” (roughly “Territories of Care”) was conceived in Favela dos Sonhos, city of Ferraz de Vasconcelos, in São Paulo, Brazil, aiming to inform communities and inspire new behaviors toward children in their Early Childhood. The campaign happened in 2023, in partnership with Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal, Gerando Falcões and the leaders of NGO Decolar, and it spread messages in different formats about basic care, interaction, conversations, games and children education.
Action consisted in community leadership trainings about Early Childhood and an public communication campaign on different media: from community radio stations to walls all over the territory; on Whatsapp and door-to-door. Moreover, we held meetings, workshops and conversation rounds.
Our challenge was to co-create a scalable and measurable communication campaign that could foster development during early childhood in vulnerable communities and help fighting structural poverty.
With a multifaceted approach, the strategy encompassed a comprehensive communication campaign, combined with processes to make local leaders and community get involved and participate. Based on intensive research and empathetic listening, we defined parameters and established a robust monitoring system to track results throughout the project. Our ultimate goal was to deliver a project that not only generated impactful results, but was also ready for large-scale replication, ensuring sustainable positive change in vulnerable communities. The project is called Territórios do Cuidado (“Territories of Care”), and the main concept of the campaign is “Children are everyone’s responsibility”.
If we create and share effective messages about early childhood in a communication campaign, we may impact the knowledge of the community about this stage of life, and mobilize families, caregivers, community leaders and the whole community, so that they will become agents of appreciation, help and support to the main caregivers, and also reinforce both parental behaviors and collective, positive care.
The campaign featured communications planned based on co-creation and listening sessions with the community and local actors. We developed communication assets for online channels and physical spaces, such as letters for door-to-door distribution, wheatpaste posters to be posted by the community, assets for WhatsApp and other social media, among others. Besides that, cultural and art activities in conversation spaces and gameplays with the community. The highlight were the face-to-face meetings:
Papo de Responsa (Talking Responsibly)
A safe space for conversations among caregivers and exchange of experiences about subjects that cut across their daily lives.
Oficina do Brincar (Play Workshop)
The main goal of this action was to create spaces for adults to learn about the benefits of playing with children in a practical, fun way .
Exposição Clique dos Sonhos (Dream Click Exhibit)
A photo exhibit of the families in the community to strengthen their positive memories and to reinforce, through photographs, the importance of care.
By the end of the campaign, we created a Replication Handbook, making it possible for the campaign to be reproduced in territories all over Brazil. It is a practical handbook, with step-by-step instructions on how to make a diagnosis of the territory, map relevant people and organizations, implement the project and measure its results.
As a result of the campaign, there was a significant increase in the community’s awareness about the crucial time frame when learning begins, especially about the importance of early-childhood education. Besides that, we raised the awareness of all community about sharing the responsibility of care, therefore helping to foster a more collective and supportive environment for the well-being of children. Lastly, there was a noticeable change in behavior, with community members reporting greater attention to children, even to those not related to them.
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