MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The threat of COVID-19 continues to force many countries to remain under quarantine. Playgrounds are still closed. Children are encouraged to stay home. Schools are geared for a full year of distance learning. BBDO Guerrero, Facebook, Child Rights Network, and the Stairway Foundation saw a need to support parents with resources to educate their children about the situation. By reading together and learning together, parents and children can cope better.
The collaborative team launched the GiF Learning Library: a series of GiF-animated stories that teach kids about staying safe at home and online.
BBDO Guerrero created these stories for lockdown, under lockdown. Using resources at hand, the team crafted each page of the book by layering GiF stickers on hand-illustrated backgrounds. This created a fully-animated scene, designed to keep young children focused without using over-stimulating animation.
Three titles have been released, available in English and Filipino, with a live storybook reading by local celebrity mom: Bianca Gonzalez. The library has also added interactive storybook quizzes and build-your-own GiF sticker pages.
“The intention is this will be a new way to provide children with gentle, educational, and age-appropriate screen content. The stories are housed on Instagram story highlights for accessibility and to allow parents to read with their children at their own pace. We are proud to be working with our partners on this project,” commented BBDO Creative Chairman David Guerrero.
“We recognize that not only are we in this unique situation where parents are finding it challenging to speak with their kids about the COVID-19 pandemic, the new reality is that kids need to stay home and they’re online more often—whether for education or entertainment. At Facebook, we understand that we have a responsibility to do what we can to keep the teens that are on our platforms safe, and to provide tools and resources that can help parents engage in conversations about online safety with their kids,” said Amber Hawkes, Facebook Head of Safety for APAC.