Groundbreaking Corey McPherson Nash Public Awareness Campaign Helps Home for Little Wanderers Reach Adolescent Girls at Risk
Award-Winning Studio Creates Innovative "My Life My Choice" Outreach to Sexually Exploited Adolescent Girls
WATERTOWN, MA - September 5, 2007 - Corey McPherson Nash (CMN), a leading brand and design company, in partnership with The Home for Little Wanderers, will launch a pioneering public awareness campaign on October 1, 2007 aimed at reducing the sexual exploitation of adolescent girls in Boston. Posters and billboards designed by the CMN team will begin appearing on buses and at locations frequented by young and vulnerable women throughout the city, such as malls, schools, MBTA stations, all-age nightclubs, and group homes.
Recent studies put the average age of entry into prostitution nationally, as well as in Massachusetts, at age 13-16. An insistent, debilitating issue in the United States, young women are deceived, manipulated, forced or coerced into prostitution every day. Pimps systematically target vulnerable young people by hanging out in places where teens and pre-teens congregate.
"This project was very challenging for us on a variety of levels," said Chris Klaehn, CMN’s Partner and Director of Brand Strategy. "Our message and overall design had to come from getting to know the girls themselves. After a series of candid, and at times painful, focus group sessions, we were able to understand that in order to reach this skeptical, elusive audience, we had to drop our own misconceptions about who they are and what they think."
"Currently, there is no public awareness campaign in Suffolk County in particular, or Massachusetts in general, targeted at the prevention of sexual exploitation among adolescent girls," said Lisa Goldblatt, primary consultant to the My Life/My Choice project. "There is a great deal of interest and investment by a multitude of collaborating agencies in the Commonwealth; to date, there has been a lack of funding and expertise to make such a project possible."
About Corey McPherson Nash
Corey McPherson Nash, a national branding and design studio, helps organizations achieve measurable brand equity across a wide variety of print and interactive communications. Their longstanding commitment to cause related issues has made it the branding firm of choice for a wide range of leading cultural and educational institutions. Widely recognized for its thoughtful design and strategic insights into the critical task of strategic brand iteration and creative development, CMN clients include OXFAM, The Huntington Theater Company, The Pan Mass Challenge, The Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the Museum of Science, Boston, and Childrens Hospital Boston. Visit CMN online at http://www.cmndesign.com.
About The Home for Little Wanderers
The Home for Little Wanderers is a nationally renowned, private, non-profit child and family service agency providing services to more than 10,000 children and families each year. The mission of The Home is to ensure the healthy development of children at risk, their families and communities through an integrated system of prevention, advocacy, research and a continuum of direct services. With a history dating back to 1799, The Home for Little Wanderers is one of the oldest child welfare agencies in the nation, and the largest in New England. More than two centuries of working with children and families in need has taught us that abuse and neglect, mental illness, domestic violence, drug and/or alcohol addiction, and poverty are not life sentences. http://www.thehome.org