Tuesday, July 17, 2007

UNICEF Black Face Campaign






Hat Tip: Black Women in Europe

Read more HERE

9 comments:

The Angry Independent said...

Speechless!

AgentX said...

I sent in a complaint to the UNICEF german office. I wrote it in German using the babelfish translator. You can use it here.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/

African American Political Pundit said...

Great idea AgentX! I'm going to follow your lead and do the same. Maybe others can do the same.

liberal journal man said...

WTF?!!

Anonymous said...

fyi: the adds have been pulled from their website

AgentX said...

I actually got a response. In English.
Thank you very much for your letter and your comments on the advertisement for our "Schools for Africa" initiative. Please let me try to explain context and message of the ad.

The German Committee for UNICEF has started a campaign to promote child-friendly schools in six African countries in late 2004. This campaign aims to raise awareness on the fact that nearly half of all children in Africa lack even primary education.

With funds from private donors, since then 350 schools have been repaired or newly constructed. In addition, several thousand teachers were trained and school management improved. In total, some hundred thousand children and young people have benefited from this campaign since 2004.

The right to education for all children is a prerequisite to develop their full potential and a basis for social and economic development. But still many governments - including the G8-countries - do not stick to their promise in the so-called "Millennium Declaration" to reach "education for all" until 2015.

We therefore tried to bring the issue up to the agenda of the G8 summit which took place in Germany in June this year. One element of our advocacy work was this ad which was developed pro bono by Jung von Matt.

The idea behind is that children from Germany demonstrate their solidarity with children in Africa by showing up with a coloured make up. Their message is: "Children may look different but are equal - we all want to go to school." Absolutely no connotation of black children as "dirty children" was intended.

Before publishing the ad, we had carefully discussed possible misinterpretations and the agency had also tested public reaction in a survey in Germany, without receiving negative comments. Neither did we receive any negative reaction from the German public after publication.

The ad was published in a few high-quality print media like Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Spiegel, Die Zeit, Stern, free-of-charge. These media had never volunteered to publish the ad if they would have expected a negative connotation. Obviously, the perception of the ad varies by country.

There are no plans to promote the ad further as it was explicitly developed for the G8 summit. We dropped it also from our website.

We apologize if you feel irritated by the make up of the children. Please rest assured that we take your remarks very seriously and will consider them in any further communication.

Thank you for sharing your comments with us.

With kind regards,

Rudi Tarneden

Press Officer

skotoseme said...

About using Babelfish to "write" in German: try translating your own letter back into English to see just how bad these programs are. I'd say don't bother; someone at the office will be proficient in English.

Example, the above text translated:

Over using Babelfish on German „write “: try to translate your own letter back into English in order to see, straight like bad these programs are. I will disturb not to say; someone in the office is on English efficient.

Honza P said...

Where have you been? I would have figured this http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010522 would have brought out the tiger in you, as it were.

I hope you are OK.

African American Political Pundit said...

Honza P: Where have you been? I would have figured this http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010522 would have brought out the tiger in you, as it were. I hope you are OK.

AAPP: Thanks for asking. Did not get the oportunity to read this until now. Thanks for the info. You know I will comment. I'm doing great just had to slow down on the blogging.

- AAPP