Just like every year, EMERGENCY NGO and Ogilvy Creative Agency are back with a wish for the year ahead.

The message “Let’s make 2022 a year of peace, not war” took on life with a video directed by Igor Borghi with the Family Film and distributed on EMERGENCY’s global social media channels, and with a public advertising campaign by photographer Giles Duley and artist Sibomana at 100 different locations across underground stations in Milan, Italy.

The video narrates the tough choice of a mother, in a country hit by war. The story starts just like any other day, with the girl getting ready to go to school, but ends with a painful finale:to pursue a better future, mum and daughter must separate.

The public campaign features portraits of war victims by Giles Duley and Sibomana, with their wishes for a future without war and powerful messages such as “Peace is not only the end of war, it’s the beginning of life”, “Only in a world gone wrong can someone can say that war is right”, “The opposite of war is not peace, it’s life”, and “War makes prisoners, peace makes free people”.

According to UNHCR, 82.4 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced by the end of 2020 due to persecution, war, violence, and human rights violations.

EMERGENCY’s wish for 2022 is for a year without war. As EMERGENCY’s founder Gino Strada, said, “War should be considered as a problem to solve, not as our destiny.”

“The dramatic images of Afghan families bringing their children to Kabul airport and desperately looking for an opportunity to leave the country showed us, once again, that war does not bring anything else but violence, the denial of basic human rights, death, and neglect. They also reminded everybody that war’s victims are, first and foremost, civilians, women and children. Our wish for 2022 is that the ongoing conflicts around the word are not neglected, so that we can all work together to really abolish war for good,”says Rossella Miccio, President of EMERGENCY.