Products: Overall branding, media kit, posters, leaflets, billboards, banners, stickers, publications, brochures, newsletters, training flip charts, manuals, cartoon strips, magazine and newspaper inserts, PSAs, animations and exhibitions for media centre.

 

 

The 2005 Wolesi Jirga ((Lower House of National Assembly) and Provincial Council elections in Afghanistan presented a big voter and civic education challenge. It was the second time democratic elections had been held in this vast and unstable country. We had a tight three-month time frame to produce all materials.

 

In coordination with the JEMBS (Joint Electoral Management Body Secretariat) and our design team we produced and disseminated a wide variety of print, audio and visual public outreach materials to ensure informed participation. These materials were designed to provide important information and key messages about the electoral process to Afghan voters and detailed training material for electoral officials. The focus on providing potential voters a clear understanding of the governments transitional process, registration, polling and counting processes and encouraging Afghan citizens to participate in the elections. Regular updates were also provided to national and international stakeholders and other interested parties through newsletters, the website, electronic updates and a media center.

 

One of the major challenges was to communicate a complex electoral process, to reach an ethnically diverse audience of 12 million with a 64% illiteracy rate. In addition, many cultural sensitivities exist such as: women and men must not be shown together, representing the population in photographs was taboo, portraying one ethnic group over another would be problematic, materials needed to be all inclusive. We found the best way to create this diverse environment was through illustrations and cartoons. The artwork and messages were hand illustrated by Afghan artists to best depict a wide range of Afghanistan’s ethnicity, regional and cultural differences. Leaflets were designed two-sided; in some cases women on one side, men on the other; in other cases one side would be in Dari, the other in Pashto.

 

In a male dominated society where women’s rights are restricted we designed campaigns targeted towards women, many of these materials were directed towards the male community relaying the importance of women’s votes and encouraging them to ensure the women in their community voted. 41% of women registered to vote.

 

Printing was overseen in Kabul, Islamabad and Dubai. All materials were printed in Dari and Pashto.