The cuddly toy of a child is more than just a best buddy. All their emotions and experiences become a part of their special friend, and to the child it is a real person, under their protection.

Because children can’t save themselves from these terrible situations, it´s only natural they would try to save one of the things they love the most from suffering the same fate.

This fundamental idea was our inspiration to create an experience that brought these children’s precious cuddly toys to people who could help them, delivered by balloons floating throughout Hamburg.

Hundreds of cuddly toys tied to balloons fell from the sky in Hamburg for one day in March 2017. Each toy represented an abused child’s sad story and carried a message with it: “Dear finder, please take good care of Scribbles so that what happened to me doesn‘t happen to him.”

On the note’s back we provided an explanation: “An estimated 200,000 cases of children being sexually abused go unreported in Germany every year. Please donate so they don’t remain helpless.”

Under the hashtag #flyteddy the experience was shared on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The experience was shared on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, generating both empathy, and high awareness about the topic. We have already reached more people than ever before through the social media channels of Dunkelziffer e. V. and that´s just in the first two weeks. Over the next few months, we will continue to generate more attention online and keep the conversation growing.