• by IPS Correspondents (orlando)
• Wednesday, November 16, 1994
• Inter Press Service

ORLANDO, Nov 16 (IPS) - The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) Wednesday extended a hand to animation industry giants like Walt Disney to help achieve health and social goals for children.

"UNICEF's constituency -- the world's children -- is the animation industry's primary audience, and we all of us have a stake in their survival, protection and development,"said Guido Bertolaso, UNICEF deputy executive director for external relations.

Bertolaso made his remarks to broadcasters, cartoonists, studio executives, educators and communications experts at a week-long workshop in the heart of Walt Disney World.

He called on the gathering to create an informal association of cartoonists and studios to work with UNICEF in producing animated shorts about some of the most acute problems affecting children worldwide.

"We hope that commercial partnerships can be formed in which we bring entertainment and education together," Bertolaso said.

He added that the animation industry should look to the "vast markets of the developing world" and help build up the cartoon capacity of Third World countries.

Bertolaso suggested the production of culturally sensitive, locally relevant animated features and shorts, supported by the major animation studios in the West, as a means of tapping these markets.

The UNICEF official also called on the studio heads to help produce and stock cartoons for children in war-torn areas like Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia: "Surely we can stock our relief supplies with scores of cartoons and animated shorts that can help children heal and laugh again."

UNICEF and some of the world's biggest animation studios, including Disney and Hanna-Barbera, have worked together in recent years on major animation projects to benefit children.

For example, in Ecuador, a talking toucan named Maximo teaches health-related messages like immunisation, and in South Asia, a young girl named Meena tackles the tricky issue of discrimination against girls and women.

In addition to Disney and Hanna-Barbera, UNICEF will also seek support from communication networks like the Children's Television Workshop, Nickelodeon, Turner Communications and Warner Brothers.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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