Amnesty International Opens Young Eyes to Free Speech Injustices Around the World

Every year for the past 10 years now, Cossette and Amnesty International have promoted the Write for Rights letter-writing campaign. This global initiative to defend human rights around the world continues to bear fruit, having helped free dozens of people who were unjustly imprisoned.

This year, the campaign is directed at youth - society’s true drivers of change - with the aim of raising their awareness about the reality of people living in countries where simply expressing their opinion or taking part in a protest can land them in jail. 

To be sure the message resonated with students, Cossette developed and recorded dictations of true present-day stories from the Writing for Rights write-a-thon, with a hand from Ludivine Reding, Mathieu Dufour, Alice Morel-Michaud, and Anas Hassouna.

The objective was to shine a light on the fragility of freedom of expression in other parts of the world and, at the same time, show the real impact that simple gestures like letter-writing can have. Students were then given the opportunity to join the initiative by writing letters of support to the person whose story they had just learned about, with the help of their teachers.

“We saw it several times this year - people from all over the planet took to the streets to defend their rights. To address the subject, we leveraged a brand experience that doubles as an awareness tool,” said Alexandre Jutras, associate creative director, craft and production, at Cossette.

“It’s a turnkey campaign that was deployed in some 300 Quebec schools that had Amnesty International committees. Our hope is that others will follow suit and give similar dictations to inspire more students to write letters,” added François-Julien Rainville, copywriter at Cossette.

The campaign also includes posters with visuals that allude to some of the recent protests around the globe, combined with elements of the prison system.