It might seem strange, but in this day and age, in Romania there are still many children who don’t have access to education. Moreover, school abandonment rate in rural areas (covering 89% of the country’s total surface) reaches 75%! The increase of abandonment at high school level in the country side, mainly caused by family financial difficulties, is even more worrying if we consider that this phenomenon is linked to other negative social phenomena such as beggary and human trafficking.

To give these children the chance to a future, the agency initiated “I Want in the Ninth Grade!”, an impactful, national campaign on behalf of World Vision Romania (WV) scholarship program. The campaign’s name was a cry for help showing both the strong will and the inability of these children to continue their studies in high school. The campaign aimed to create awareness on school abandonment issues, to make targeted audiences empathise with the children’s problems, so that they could actively engage in the program and become donors. Over 300 donors “adopted” a child through this social program, three quarters of them saying that they found out about the possibility of adoption through articles in the media.

The pre-launching phase – a creative PR blitz including releases with results of surveys – attracted media attention and paved the way for the launch, an event organized in a Bucharest classroom.The post-launch phase included: • Direct mailing with a pen and a letter from a child• “A Day of Silence” blogger’s campaign• Famous endorsers including actress Daniela Nane, whose encounter with a supported child made the launch cover issue of Marie Claire magazine in Romania. Daniela’s initiative was afterwards enhanced by Constantina Dita, the winner of the Beijing Olympics marathon.

• Campaign visibility was maintained with story articles about donors and supported children, online raffles of items made by program children, and an educative blog in partnership with one of the most popular women’s portals in Romania• In addition to PR, ATL (TV commercial), media and direct marketing were also used.

Launched in March 2008, the campaign continues. To date, messages have reached almost 5 million Romanians, 400% more than the initial objective. The campaign generated over 90 printed press articles (exceeding the target of 30), and almost 150 online articles and 15 bloggers joined the initiative of a “Day of Silence”. But the best achievement was of obtaining 12 appearances on TV, translating to 80 minutes broadcast time! Campaign messages were also broadcast in radio news, reaching over 900,000 listeners. Press requests for information on child protection issues addressed to World Vision proves that we managed to position WV as an expert in the domain. The “I Want in the Ninth Grade!” campaign did not only reach but exceeded the initial objectives: almost 340 donors “adopted” a child through this social program, three quarters of them saying that they found out about it through the articles we generated in the media.