Hasta La Creative!

One of the sadder holiday traditions is Colombia’s annual Christmas campaign to persuade homesick guerrilla fighters to sneak out of the jungle and surrender their weapons.

Over the past three years, Lowe SSP3, working with Colombia’s Ministry of Defense, has decorated huge Christmas trees in the jungle, floated LED-lit plastic balls filled with hopeful messages and sent small gifts down rivers the insurgents use to get around. It’s also lit the sky with beacons to provide a guiding light for guerrillas escaping camps at night.

But this year they are bringing out the heavy artillery: the guerrillas’ moms. The “Mother’s Voice” campaign tells the real-life stories of about 30 mothers whose children are members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as FARC. Each poster shows a real family picture of one of today’s armed fighters as an innocent child, with the mother’s message: “Before you were a guerrilla, you were my son.” Ads end with the line, “This Christmas, we’re waiting for you at home. Demobilize.”

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