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Maternal Health Challenges Take Center Stage in New Campaign
Stories demonstrate the need for proper care
A new campaign focuses on the life-threatening challenges faced by moms who don’t receive the care they desperately need.
“Ode to Strangers,” from international NGO ALIMA (the Alliance for International Medical Action), employs compelling animation, heartfelt narration and music. Nazar Works developed the initiative.
The goal is twofold: to raise awareness about significant barriers to accessing care and to generate support for potential solutions.
The work presents the stories of mothers across the globe who face moments of crisis. In each case, a stranger’s kindness changed the course of their lives.
One of the tales shows a woman in a remote area of Cameroon who delivered triplets, but lived far from the nearest hospital. Someone contacted ALIMA for help, and two of the babies survived against the odds.
An episode in the life of Nazar Works managing director Neda Azarfar inspired the approach.
Azarfar once sat in a hospital waiting room when a friend’s mother recounted her harrowing birth story.
“It was during a storm [as the family fled Vietnam in the 1970s] they were shot at, she was in and out of consciousness—Spielberg-level stuff,” Azarfar tells Muse. “After days, a strange woman appeared and helped her deliver. And now, there she was, telling me this story.”
“As marketers, we know nothing connects like a good story,” she says. “We wanted to transcend a singular crisis or geography by going outside patient testimonials and sharing stories that span backgrounds and contexts beyond Africa.”
The team strove to address the subject matter in a way that wouldn’t make people tune out. They opted for first-person narratives with animated illustrations.
“It’s been incredible to share these stories with the world,” adds ALIMA USA executive director Charlie Kunzer. “We’re asking people to reflect on the difficult conditions that so many women find themselves in on a daily basis and picture what they would do to help. We have the power to provide long-term solutions to improve maternal mortality. That’s a huge deal.”
“Ode to Strangers” appears on ALIMA’s website and runs through Feb. 28.
