With every drowned person, the value of the European Union drown, too.

Kund:in

Projekt

If politicians don’t care about sea rescue, we have to continue doing their job.

Casefilm

Drowned Requiem

TASK

Every day, people drown as they flee across the Mediterranean, and Europe, especially its politicians, looks the other way.

Human rights?

They simply drown with them.

How do we get Europe to look again and fulfil its humanitarian duty?

IDEA

We sent an unmistakable and unignorable sign and let Europe’s strongest and most important symbol for freedom and human rights drown: The European Anthem. The performance musicians of Between Music transformed Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” into a requiem – and played it at the grave of thousands of refugees – at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

The “Drowned Requiem”.

RESULT

The performance video of the “Drowned Requiem” spread throughout Europe. It was particularly successful in government districts from Brussels to Berlin thanks to geotargeting. Through the campaign page, thousands of Europeans emailed EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to remind her of the EU’s treaty obligations – and United4Rescue raised donations for a new rescue ship.

More than 15 million contacts, visitors from 80 countries for wesendaship.org, an average donation of 84.37 Euro per donor and 440,000 Euro for a new rescue ship: the SEA-EYE 4. Financed in a record-breaking 4 weeks.

And Ursula von der Leyen? She had her email account disabled.

The SEA-EYE 4 rescued more than 400 people on it’s first mission.

If politicians don’t care about sea rescue, we have to continue doing their job.