A health message that crosses language and culture
An animated film for Lushomo on how the places we live shape our health.
The need
Who they needed to reach
People everywhere whose health depends on the air they breathe, the water they drink and the places they live and work, across languages, cultures and levels of education
What stood in the way
Polluted air, unsafe water, poor housing and hazardous work make people ill on a huge scale, but the link between environment and health is easy to overlook. The usual way of explaining it, through data, technical language and policy, shuts out most of the people it affects. The film had to cross barriers of language, culture, geography, education and development.
What success looked like
Viewers anywhere who recognise themselves in the story, understand that a healthier environment means healthier families, and want to act on it.
How we met the need
We told the message as an allegory. A man from a crowded, polluted city realises that his family's illness comes from the world around them, and he decides to trade in his sick world for a healthy one. Hand-drawn characters move through real photographs of cities, homes and clinics, so the story feels universal and real at the same time. The tone is warm and light-hearted, so the message stays with people.
The process
Where we live shapes how healthy we are. Polluted air, unsafe water, poor sanitation, crowded housing and hazardous work cause a large share of the world’s illness and early deaths, and the people with the least are hit hardest. Much of that harm can be prevented, but only if people understand where it comes from.
Lushomo asked us to make a film that carries this message to anyone, anywhere. That ruled out the usual tools of public health communication: charts, statistics and technical terms. The film needed broad themes, handled in a way that is inclusive of every culture and region, and a story simple enough to follow without explanation.
We wrote an allegory. A man in a grey, crowded city sees his family suffer: a sick baby, a polluted lake in the newspaper, a world that has quite literally been bandaged up. He takes his broken globe to the New World Clinic and trades it in for a clean, healthy one, then carries it home through the city to his family.
We developed the story from script to storyboard sketches, then drew simple characters and placed them in real photographs. That mix keeps the film grounded in places viewers recognise, while the characters stay universal enough for anyone to see themselves in them.
What the client got
A serious public health message, told as a warm and simple story
Lushomo has a short film that explains the link between environment and health without statistics or jargon. Its simple story and universal images let the same film work with very different audiences around the world.
