Greetings card campaigning in snow

It was a dark and stormy morning. 11am, 18 December, 2010 to be precise. Well, maybe not dark, or even that stormy, but it was snowing. Snowing a lot. A few brave members of the group had nonetheless managed to ski, slide, cycle, or even take the tube to Whitechapel Idea Store, for our traditional greetings card campaign action. The first picture, on the left, is what Dan looked like, emerging from the blizzard.


The idea of the greetings card campaign is to ask members of the public to write a solidarity card to someone in prison, a threatened human rights defender, or someone else worthy of support. So we set up our stall in the quiet library, as seen in our second picture, with our lovingly crafted postcards, information about the cases and about Amnesty, and some materials for children to pass the time with some crafts as well. And our balloon candle.


Yes, you did read that right. This kind of event just doesn't work without a stunt of some magnitude. This year we had asked a balloon artist to create an Amnesty candle out of, well what else but balloons. The candle was big enough for a person to get in it, so the artist was able to add to the surreality of it all by standing outside on the pavement, in the snowstorm, dressed in a candle, and tempting (nonexistent) passers-by to come in.



All that fun aside, the event was also a success from a card-writing point of view: about 70 cards were written and posted! Not bad, considering the circumstances. Last year it really was stormy, this year it was snow. Who knows what we will see next year...