Glasgow College students have once more teamed up with Nil by Mouth to help spread our message to schools across the country.
The charity will kick off 2024 by launching a new campaign aimed at promoting its ‘United Against Division’ school programme which gives young people a greater understanding of different faiths and cultures.
The campaign was devised by marketing students Marco Romero, Dylan McKirdy and Lucas Ross as part of City of Glasgow College’s ‘Pitch Perfect’ competition which sees more than 100 marketing students compete to create a campaign which challenges people to act against hatred and is judged by an independent panel drawn from the world of the arts, marketing and charity campaigning.
The group’s campaign draws on classroom themes such as blackboards and numerical symbols allied with effective slogans such as ‘Divide Numbers, Not People.’ It will run across a range of local media outlets and teaching websites as well as social media platforms from January.
In 2023 nearly 5,000 pupils from more than 90 schools participated in the project and the charity hope that the campaign will encourage even more to sign up over the next 12 months. The project is supported by the Scottish Government as part of its ‘Tackling Sectarianism' programme which funds a range of activities right across the country.
The students campaign will run across local media outlets and social media platforms during the first three months with the aim of encouraging denominational and non-denominational schools to work together in conjunction with the charity on a range of sporting, artistic and community activities.
Marco Romero said:
‘We wanted to come up with a campaign that would let people quickly understand what the charity was all about and who its target audience is. Given the importance of education to Nil by Mouth’s work we felt using symbols that people easily associated with schools such as numerical signs and blackboards would be most effective. The charity liked the idea so much that in addition to the promotional campaign it's also commissioned hundreds of posters which pupils can hold up at the end of each Nil by Mouth workshop to reinforce their support for the campaign. The feedback we’ve had from schools so far has been amazing and we are hopeful it will encourage even more schools to become involved with the ‘United Against Division’ project. We’ve learned a lot about the issue by taking part in the project and it's been good developing our skills working on something which will hopefully promote greater tolerance and understanding between people.'
Nil by Mouth Director Dave Scott said:
‘We’re delighted to be working with the students on this campaign as they are very talented guys and the judges were hugely impressed by their presentation. Their idea is simple but highly effective and we had no hesitation in commissioning it to run during the first few months of 2024 to promote the ‘United Against Division’ programme. Schools work is absolutely central to everything we do as the earlier young people are presented with positive messages and facts the lesser the risk of them developing sectarian attitudes. ‘