There are more than 105.000 orphans in Russia. The main problem is that when potential parents first become interested in adoption, they can only view the kids on the state data bank, where they are presented with a sloppy picture and a short and cold description.

The challenge was to make the whole country aware of this awful situation and mostly to prompt the government to find a new way to present the orphans, by substituting the pictures on the state data bank with videos that give justice to the kids’ personalities. That’s why together with Change One Life Foundation we created “Movies that change lives”. We invited 10 of the best Russian movie and advertising directors. Each of them visited different orphanages around the country to meet the children. Then each director wrote and shot a short movie starring a little orphan, using his own style and vision to reveal the child’s personality.

For one month these 10 movies were played all over Russia in cinema halls and online. People from all the regions of the country immediately started sharing and talking about the project. TV channels, newspapers, magazines, bloggers: we got hundreds of free publications. The success of the project was confirmed by adoption requests for most of the movie heroes. The campaign was able to change the public attitude towards adoption: from complete indifference to mass involvement. This way not only 10 but hundreds of thousands kids’ can be discovered and adopted.

The challenge was to make the whole country aware of this awful situation and mostly to prompt the government to find a new way to present the orphans, by substituting the pictures on the state data bank with videos that give justice to the kids’ personalities.

More than 500.000 people watched “Movies that change lives” in cinema halls and online. TV channels, newspapers and magazines gave us hundreds of free publications, both online and offline. Most of the media had national coverage which provoked word of mouth across the whole Russia.

Thousands of bloggers shared their impression about the project. During the first 2 weeks of the campaign the Foundation website was viewed about 190 000 times. The number of followers of the Foundation’s profiles in social media reached about 70 000. At this very moment in each of the 85 regions of Russia there is an initiative group representing “Change one life”. The government is ready to collaborate in updating the state archive and what’s even more important, most of our movie heroes were requested for adoption and they’ll hopefully meet their new families.

We invited 10 of the best Russian movie and advertising directors. Each of them visited different orphanages around the country to meet the children. Then each director wrote and shot a short movie starring a little orphan, using his own style and vision to reveal the child’s personality.

There are more than 105.000 orphans in Russia. The main problem is that when potential parents first become interested in adoption, they can only view the kids on the state data bank, where they are presented with a sloppy picture and a short and cold description. And there is one more problem: while for newborns and little girls it’s relatively easier to find a family, for male orphans over 7 years of age there is little hope left.

Being a Foundation, Change One Life needed to find a way to create a campaign with very little resources and to gain as much free media coverage as possible.