This Lebanese Red Cross Donation Campaign Rocks

You might have noticed this ad in January, when it appeared in Al-Mustaqbal newspaper, the Daily Star, Al-Akhbar and Al Joumhouriya. It caught my attention today and I think it deserves more exposure than what it originally received.

The ads in this campaign are both bluntly and brilliantly pointing out what matters most to our dear Lebanese: we are either always watching the news and being exposed to shocking or violent images or reading up on the latest gossip, drama and divorces written about in the tabloids.



In one of the ads, a neighborhood is shown severely destroyed by a bomb explosion with the headline: “Celebrity marriage shocker, divorced after just 72 days.” In small print, the caption explains: “We’re not in the headlines, but we need your help. Please donate.”

With the massive amount of entertainment media being produced in this country and around the world, it’s incredibly easy to overlook real tragedy and devastation. We become numb to it. We stop caring about it. But this ad campaign serves as an important reminder that we need to see past the headlines and attention-grabbing images to issues that are of utmost importance in this world: human suffering and our obligation to help mend it.