Children's stories feature imaginative places, fantastical characters, and of course, happy endings. While these worlds of wonder can bring delight to young audiences, in the real world, there are some stories that are never meant for children. That’s the message in UNICEF’s “Unfairy Tales,” an animated film series that chronicles the true stories of Syrian child refugees and the horrors they face in their search for safety. The series launched UNICEF’s #actofhumanity global initiative to help frame positive perceptions towards the tens of millions of children and young people on the move globally.

UNICEF spoke with hundreds of refugees, to hear their tragic stories, first-hand, in their own words. The challenge was to tastefully turn their gruesome, gut-wrenching stories into delicate art pieces through narration and a visual style fitting of their testimony. The campaign uses the lightness of classic children’s stories to undercut the very real, very tragic stories that these children are facing every day. Through a variety of animation styles and across a wide range of different mediums, we were able to engage people all over the world in a new conversation, amplified by coverage on some of the biggest news channels in the world. The campaign was launched at the Syrian Donor Conference with the presence of Malala Yousafzai and the British prime-minister David Cameron, and on CNN International.

UNICEF is starting to change the conversation around the youngest refugees. They are often seen as threats to their host countries, leading to their stigmatization and marginalization, in turn making their transition and acceptance into other countries difficult. Through the campaign, these children’s voices were heard by more than half billion people across 176 countries, leading to not only widespread exposure, but a widening of perspectives. News stories and social comments in response to the campaign (i.e. “I want to adopt Mustafah”) show a major attitude shift in terms of accepting/helping these kids.

UNICEF promotes the rights and well-being of every child, in everything they do. UNICEF shared the "Unfairy Tales" message across film, radio, PR, social media, and out of home.

Unfairy Tales shows the realities of being a child refugee in an unsuspecting way through impressive animation visualizations. In this way, we were able get these children’s tragic stories in front of people who might otherwise think negatively about these refugees, and instead, to see them as innocent children, in need our care and protection. The films highlight the human story and experiences of the young refugees, garnering a sense of solidarity both amongst refugee and migrant communities, as well as the larger host communities in which they are living.

Five years in, the Syrian crisis has displaced 2.4 million Syrian children, and left more than eight million children in need of aid. As the world’s leader in humanitarian aid for children, UNICEF has been working tirelessly to secure the protection and rights of these children. The campaign objective is to destigmatize child refugees in neighboring countries, while reinforcing UNICEF’s global “children are children” strategy. The communication had to be adapted by a wide range of UNICEF’s global chapters to support their local partners in transit and in destination countries.