Chapters created an awareness campaign for the municipality of Heerlen - bringing awareness to children’s development, health, and wellbeing in the first 1000 days of their little lives.
The result? An entire new community arose.
Sjpruut is an accessible initiative powered by local welfare and healthcare organisations, that speaks to the local community.
The first 1000 days of a child’s life creates the base for their future. When we miss the signals that they have a learning disability, it can trouble them for the rest of their lives.
Signaling a learning disability at the start of primary school is simply too late.
There is a lot of prejudice when it comes to opening up about a child’s ability to learn.
Parents fear for being judged - or worse - and have a hard time trusting the local council and welfare organisations.
Our challenge was to create trust between the local council, the affiliated organisations, and the parents.
When it comes to their children, the target audience sees the local council and welfare organisations as a threat. In our strategy we did not make the council the communicator, nor the affiliated organisations.
We created the trust that was needed with a new initiative we named Sjpruut — with its own brand identity.
A community in which mothers can find each other and where they can feel like they are not in it alone.
Where they are provided with the right kind of help. Research showed shocking results about the knowledge of pregnancy and childcare in the area. Therefore we created Sjpruut to raise awareness with an ongoing campaign, with which we continue to reach and help parents.
It takes a village to raise a child. Literally. In our concept we are putting all of Heerlen to work for the children. For the sake of the future of the city. The public library is organising children’s readings. Cafés are turning their location into mom cafés where mothers can meet. Clothing drives are organised where baby clothes can be swapped, and mothers can pick up free clothing and other baby needs. A Sjpruut shop offers everything on hand for infants. Sjpruut offers a promising start. Never communicating in problems, only in opportunities. Never upfront, always thoughtful.
Sjpruut literally takes mothers by the hand. In our brand icon, we created a ‘sjpruut’ with hands and feet that grows with you as your own little ‘sjpruut’ grows.
This ‘sjpruut’ communicates everything you need to know as a parent.
Sjpruut is not only created for the target audience, but for every baby born in Heerlen, to ensure that everyone within the municipality gets reached and the target audience is always addressed.
At birth, all registered babies receive a soft ‘Sjpruut’ figurine and parents receive a folder that guides them to the website that was thoughtfully designed by Chapters, on which parents can find literally everything they need. Sjpruut is carried out by the municipality of Heerlen.
