In the current spring campaign "Life is not a game", UNICEF ambassador and actor Anatole Taubman gives children a stage who would otherwise have none.
There are around 500 million children currently living in conflict zones around the world. That’s double the number from 1990. The fighting in the Middle East and Ukraine gets media coverage, but there are also children in “forgotten” crisis regions like Sudan and the Sahel. These girls and boys are constantly exposed to the threat of violence, bombs, mines, exploitation and human trafficking. Growing up in the midst of so much death and destruction has devastating effects on their psychological health. In every war, it is children who suffer most.
Never give up, protect childhood
The heart of the campaign is a thirty-second promotional spot. In it, children have a stage and a voice without appearing in person. This is a completely new approach in communication. Anatole Taubman, an ambassador for UNICEF Switzerland and Liechtenstein, contributes here what an actor does best – his acting. He reveals his personal fears and the horror that is aroused in him by the noises of war. He is not playing a role here; he is playing himself.
The background noises and Anatole Taubman’s emotions rise to their climax in a void where all hope dies. In these thirty seconds, the viewer is carried away on a tumultuous chase that barely allows time to breathe.
The message “Life is not a game” links the performance with reality in the viewer’s mind. And the personal interpretation “So how does war feel to a child?” goes on running in your head. The aim of the fundraising campaign “Never give up, protect childhood” is to raise the general public’s awareness of this urgent issue.
For Anatole Taubman, who has been championing the cause of vulnerable children and a better world with UNICEF for 14 years now, this is a deep, intrinsic concern. “It was a huge challenge for me to try to present this spectrum of powerful, negative feelings authentically and raw. And in a highly abstract setting with no script or costume. No role to offer concealment or protection. It was very intense and moved me enormously. The true reality and all these horrors that all these children have to suffer in crisis zones or regions where armed conflict is raging is a human tragedy.”