UNICEF in Iceland and Moomin Character Ltd in Finland have entered into an adventurous partnership that works to improve the world for children and, among other things, to guarantee children’s right to education. The collaboration between UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the Moomin family began last year.
UNICEF brought together the TYKJÓ design team and Ævar Þór Benediktsson, the UNICEF Ambassador to Iceland, to create an experience for children and their families based on the core values of love, tolerance, empathy and adventure. There will be a special presentation of the project, called Ævintýri banki up, in Harpa today, Friday March 4, from 16-19 in connection with the concert of Lauri Porra and the Symphony – Seasons in Múmíndal.
Ævar Þór Benediktsson
Child-friendly rights education and support for children’s rights
The aim of the Ævintýri banku project is to promote language development and reading comprehension in children, to encourage imagination and creativity, and at the same time to support children around the world by increasing the number of Heimparents, monthly supporters of UNICEF. The product is a 12 month adventure trip for children based on Tove Jansson’s story The Night of Fortune. Those who sign up for the trip will receive a Moomin theater to play with, then each month the various Moomindale characters (Mia, Snorkstelpan, Moominsnáðinn, Hemúllin, Snúður and others), game cards, story cards and an education on the rights of the child will be added. Donations from those who sign up for the trip are important core donations that are used, among other things, in UNICEF’s work to secure children’s rights to education around the world.
Throughout history, the Moomin family has been dedicated to supporting charities and working with select charities to make the world a better place. So it was a great honor for UNICEF Iceland to start this collaboration, but UNICEF Iceland is leading this project for all Nordic countries.
“What’s important to us when entering into a collaboration is that it relates in some way to the stories and values behind the Moomin elves,” says Roleff Kråkström, Managing Director of Moomin Character. Ltd, and are pleased with how it has been possible to create a family journey that blends beautiful and visual products with the stories and values of Tove. Roleff says that one of the goals of the Moomin family is to increase empathy through reading and writing, and that play and creativity play an important role in this. With all the products that accompany the journey, you can create a real world of adventure where children play and use their imagination to pretend, practice putting themselves in the shoes of others, learn more about the Children’s Convention and creating quality time away from the screen for the family.
You can register for the trip through Moomindal here .
A journey on humanity and the rights of all children
The journey through Moomin Valley is not only educational and creative, but each month children receive beautifully designed Moomin drawings, game cards with fun projects, characters and other accessories. The designers of TYKJÓ embraced the experiential design of the project and stayed in Múmíndal for many months and testified that it is good to be there. Sigríður Sunna Reynisdóttir and Ninna Þórarinsdóttir from ÞYKJÓ describe the journey in such a way that it is a journey about humanity, about the rights of all children and about the value of being able to lend a hand to others:
“It’s an adventure that gives children the opportunity to reflect on a complex world in safety and gives adults the opportunity to read deeper between the lines”, they say and give examples from the adventure . Then Hemúllin installs a sign in his pleasure garden prohibiting the little marmots from jumping and laughing. At the same time, according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it is the right of all children to play and express their opinions. So it’s fun when Snúður comes and tears up the panels.
Every month, children and their guardians receive such nuggets of rights education to use in their world of adventure and discuss among themselves – Can adults, for example, set rules that prohibit children from laughing and to play?
Children’s participation is the basis of the design work
TYKJÓ designers use the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as the basis for their design work. TYKJÓ’s Children’s Council is a generic name for all cooperation and dialogue that designers have with children during the working process of each project, and no exceptions were made this time. TYKJÓ therefore organized special workshops with the children during the development. “During a conversation with many of the children who have worked with us at various stages of the design process, we have clearly seen that they are very passionate about this project. They hear about displaced children, they hear about the war in Ukraine and they try to piece together the piecemeal information that comes in. Tove Jansson’s gift to us adults is to write books about big issues that are often difficult to discuss with children without causing fear or anxiety. Night of Fate and other Moomin books were written at a time when the number of people on the run had never been higher – until now. There has rarely been such a need to take care for the fragile rights of children around the world, and we are grateful to organizations like UNICEF,” say Sigríður Sunna and Ninna.
Pretend
Roleff Kråkström accepts the importance of helping children in need and hopes the project will be successful and support UNICEF’s fundraising to work for the betterment of children around the world. “If we can also get children and parents to work together to help others, to talk together, to learn, to understand and to develop their empathy with people in need, then everything is won.” That could kind of be the end goal,” Roleff says.
Those who register for the trip through Moomindal will be at the same time Parents of the world UNICEF , monthly sponsors who support UNICEF’s mission around the world. Parental contributions ensure, among other things, children’s access to education, clean water, nutrition, housing and emergency aid, to name a few.
