In Argentina, like in many other places, people living in extreme poverty conditions are kind of invisible for the rest of the population that in the past years got used to the images of poverty until they became something usual, a part of the landscape.

In addition, the Zavaleta district, where our Organization has been working for ten years, had been recently criticized in the media. We had to show everyone that the families and especially the children needed our help, and that it’s not fair to criticize them: we have to help them instead.

The strategy was to use the entire slum as a canvas, and let the media come to us.

The idea was to paint the entire slum with fluorescent paint simulating the highlighters ink, to bring attention to the place, to show everyone that families like any other were living there, and to raise awareness that they really need the society help to overcome the situation they are living in.

The idea was to paint the entire slum with fluorescent paint simulating the highlighters ink, to bring attention to the place, to show everyone that families like any other were living there, and to raise awareness that they really needed our help.Zavaleteros Organization is made up exclusively of volunteers, so we decided that the volunteers themselves, along with the neighbours, would paint all the houses with the yellow fluorescent paint, to generate an unusual visual impact in the place, and to bring the attention of the media.Some of the top TV channels covered the painting live, as well as many web sites, newspapers, magazines and local radio shows. And Zavaleteros Organization became one of the news of the day.

The activation was covered by mainstream media, and also had a high impact on online media and social networks (lanacion.com, hacercomunidad.org).For its TV coverage, it was seen by 1,511,300 people (source: IBOPE, Total persons, AMBA-04.19.2011). And it was transmitted on the main cable news channels (TN and C5N).More than 100,000 people listened to the radio interviews with people of the Organization. (Radius 10, Mitre, La Red, among others).Only 4 days after the activation, Zavaleteros.org increased by 29% in the amount of automatic debits to make contributions, and most importantly: they recruited more than 20% in the number of volunteers.