My critique is on a social experiment video that was aimed to help kickstart the launch Act for Peace’s fundraising appeal for the Ration Challenge. In this emotionally-charged video, Act for Peace demonstrate that the biggest impediment to delivering crucial assistance to refugees is not just hatred, but indifference. The video shows a man in the busy streets of Australia, with a sign that says “refugees are scum.” This incites angry reactions from locals and one pedestrian even rips the sign off of the man. He is met with fury and rage from many onlookers who blatantly disagree with the message on his placard. He then goes back there a few moments later with a different placard that says “help refugees” along with flyers that contain more information about how to help out. Surprisingly (not really), he is met with stone cold faces of people who are too busy to stop to even grab a flyer or acknowledge his presence.

This video was made in a way that forced the idea of self reflection throughout, in order to see what side you, as a viewer, would fall on. With that being said, most people are very vocal about refugees being humans and that their basic human rights need to be met, however few of us actually move past the passivity of a simple ‘like/love’ or online status.

This video was released at the launch of Act for Peace’s campaign, the Ration Challenge. The Ration Challenge was started by this organization in order to bring to light the conditions that Syrian refugees have to live through in refugee camps in Jordan. The challenge has three main parts to it. 1) After fundraising $100, you receive a ‘ration package’ in the mail with the same contents a Syrian refugee currently lives off of. 2) For an entire week, you commit to eating only what you receive in your rations package. 3) You document your progress, share your experience and raise vital funds with the end goal of having people either join the challenge, or give monetary donations to Act for Peace. An interesting aspect of this challenge is the earned rewards that one is able to get by doing simple tasks. Because refugees can add to their rations by cultivating a garden they are also able to add supplies that they have ‘cultivated’ by getting sponsorship: $200 raised adds a condiment; $300 adds a serve of vegetables; $400 adds a portion of fruit; $500 adds a serve of protein; and $1000 adds a bonus item to the value of $5. Seeing as though they used the method of crowdfunding, their intended audience was just the everyday people of Australia who are active on social media.

There has always been this notion that a ‘crisis’ needs to be handled by big corporations or government entities, but this organization has given the power of change to the individuals who decide to take part in this challenge, to somewhat nullify the ideas of inaction and passivity that so often plague our current generation.

Their social experiment video received over 1.4 million views on Facebook and 200,000 views on Youtube. I would say that there has been tremendous publicity gained through this video. Over 14,o00 people took part in the Ration Challenge in 2017, raising over $3.2 mil through fundraising efforts.  Currently, this challenge is only available to those in Australia; however they are working on expanding the reach of this challenge to the USA, Asia, UK, Ireland, NZ, Canada and across Europe and Asia.

My major critique on this project is its reach. While they are still working on expanding this challenge to other places, I don’t think it needs to just be contained within one week (Refugee Week). Although there is a sense of solidarity and increased media attention that comes to the situation around that time, I think its hard to have an extended period of traffic and conversation on this topic if it is only confined to one week of the year. Although the organization says that people are not confined to taking part in the challenge during Refugee Week, this is the time they publicize the challenge the most. It would be great if this could be expanded to something that happens every few months, so that the conversation doesn’t have to end on June 24 but can continue throughout the rest of the year.