Project Nanhi Kali is an NGO that supports education of girls in India. Over 20 million Indian girls drop out of school every year (Indian Census Data) - the main reason being, educating girls is seen as an unnecessary economic burden by society. What's worse, most of these girls are forced into child marriage. 47% Indian underage girls were illegally married off in 2016. Project Nanhi Kali has been working hard to generate donations for girl child education from affluent sections of Indian society. However, with many charities and causes fighting for the same audience's attention and money, donations were hard to come by. The Indian elite also view charities with much distrust and cynicism, leading to mailers often finding their way straight to the trash. When they asked us to design another direct mailer, we asked ourselves how we could design it in a way that'll make people notice?

The invite was designed exactly like a traditional Indian Wedding Card - with all the ostentatiousness that would mark a wedding of stature. We chose motifs and a colour palette that would be familiar to any Indian receiver and make them immediately eager to open it. The first side invited readers to the wedding of Neelam (a 12-year-old girl) to Kishor (a 42-year-old man) in a matter-of-fact way - as if everything was normal in the world. This shocking part was what got our audience to read further and discover the disturbing results of lack of education. The Invites were sent to over 5000 homes in the country over a span of 3 months.