Central Concept

Our central concept is empathy and child soldiers.

Why should this subject matter be addressed?
Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of children are recruited into armed
forces. Often they are abducted at school, on the streets or at home.

This means that girls and boys illegally and under force, participate in
combat where frequently they are injured or killed. Others are used
as spies, messengers, porters, servants or to lay or clear landmines
and are at risk of sexual abuse.

These children are robbed of their childhood and exposed to terrible
dangers and to psychological and physical suffering.

Through getting people to empathize with these children then we
can raise awareness of the situation and contribute to help stopping
it.

Why Empathy?
I read an article called Guilt and Giving: A Process Model of Empathy and Efficacy which is about the use of empathy and self-efficacy to generate guilt in charity work, "charity guilt advertising". I found this article useful as it explains empathy very well and how and why it is used in charity work. I took alot from it that is in relation to what we want to do and why we chose empathy to raise awareness of the existence of child soldiers and in turn get the user to do something about it.

Empathy involves viewing another person’s situation from the perspective of that person and understanding how the situation appears to that person and how that person is reacting cognitively and emotionally to the situation. As a result, empathy allows an individual to assess a situation as if it were affecting them rather than someone else. "putting yourself in someone else's shoes"

Charity appeals frequently use pictures/video footage of people in need of help, accompanied by the their sad stories. These appeals are an attempt to induce guilt and generate empathy on the part of viewers. The critical question is whether they successfully generate guilt and empathy or instead result in reactions that distance the viewer from the situation.

Empathy motivates and increases pro-social behaviour. Pro-social behaviors are those intended to help other people. Pro-social behavior is characterized by a concern about the rights, feelings and welfare of other people. Behaviors that can be described as pro-social include feeling empathy and concern for others and behaving in ways to help or benefit other people. Pro-social behavior in turn can also be motivated by a desire to reduce one’s sense of guilt.
Our society holds the social norm of helping the less fortunate (Mead, 1985), so failing to do so can lead one to anticipate feeling guilty as a result.

Empathy and Personal Relevance
If a situation affects oneself then it is more personally relevant than a situation that affects another. If empathy is used to enhance personal relevance, then the perception of need is increased. The more personal it is the more effective. Both dispositional and demographic factors have also been shown to impact peoples response to charity appeals. Dispositional factors are a person's inherent qualities of mind and character, for example some individuals have a natural tendency toward feeling guilty or being empathetic. Demographic factors iclude age, race, gender ect.

This explains why empathy will play an important role in our project. Whatever we create it is crucial that the audience effectively empathize with it so we can achieve good results from them for example get them to donate.