Children's stories feature imaginative places with fantastical characters. While these worlds of wonder can bring delight to young audiences, there are some stories never meant for children.

That’s the message in the animated series “Unfairy Tales,” which chronicles the true stories of three of the eight million children whose lives are in ruins because of the Syrian conflict.

“Unfairy Tales” juxtaposes stunning animations with terrifying narrations of events. The series highlights tragedies that are beyond what any human should experience, much less a child.

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.

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.

Now in its fifth year, the Syrian crisis has caused 2.4 million Syrian children to be displaced, and has left a total of 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 Syrian children.

The campaign objective is to help destigmatize refugees in neighboring countries and reinforce UNICEF’s global “children are children” strategy that profiles what the refugee crisis means for children.