The European Commission's Humanitarian aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO) aims to save and preserve life, prevent and alleviate human suffering and safeguard the integrity and dignity of populations affected by natural disasters and man-made crises.
Headquartered in Brussels with a global network of field offices, ECHO ensures rapid and effective delivery humanitarian assistance to victims of conflict and disasters both inside and outside the EU.
THE CHALLENGE
AP Assignments has worked with ECHO since 2008, providing emergency broadcast coverage of major humanitarian crises around the world, from Haiti to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
To mark ECHO’s 20th anniversary in 2012, we were asked to provide a range of content to drive maximum awareness of the organization’s achievements.
In addition to the wider content distribution, a special screening would take place at the anniversary celebration in Brussels to an audience of politicians and leading figures in the humanitarian field. Subsequently much of the material would need to be voiced and subtitled to reflect the 23 EU languages.
HOW WE HELPED
For the 20th anniversary project, our dedicated team coordinated camera crews in Kenya, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Sarajevo, Italy, and Brussels. Location filming included interviews with former ECHO employees, EC commissioners and final beneficiaries.
We drew on archive of video content produced on behalf of ECHO, but also on AP’s own archive of material filmed over the last century. These resources provided invaluable footage of crises in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, and the 2004 Asian Tsunami.
The resulting interviews and sequences were then crafted into the required range of documentary, social media, and Public Service Announcement content packages for use by ECHO and produced in up to 23 languages.
