Abandoned prams worry us here at Pram Watch, so you can imagine our concern when images like the one below came to our attention. However, no prams were hurt during the experiment, and babies may have been helped, in the cosmic sense. So we’re totally on board, after all. This is a picture of people responding (and not) to the wails of a crying baby, which are emanating from the blue pram:
Only there’s no baby. That pram is “UNICEF blue”, and inside is a sound system, hollering away. It’s an campaign, apparently from last winter (March 2009) , meant to raise awareness, in Finland, of UNICEF’s commitment to children. Concerned passersby who peeked into the unattended prams (there apparently were 15 of them, scattered across the country) saw a note: ““By supporting UNICEF anyone can be a mother to them, for just a moment” (or something like that — I’m in no position to parse Finnish).
Interesting experiment, no? Apparently no one tracked bystander involvement, because that wasn’t the point, but at least one blog reported (yeah, this is all hearsay, since, as noted above, I can’t read Finnish) that
Media and public reaction was overwhelming. They flooded all the major TV, radio and web news. Estimated media reach was over 80% of Finnish population after 2 days.
80% of the population?! Those are better-than-super-bowl numbers! Would it work in the USA? I think not. I’m guessing that Finns are more likely to check on crying infants who have apparently been abandoned in the snow. I’m thinking it’s a smaller, friendlier place. And a colder one.
Read a slightly snarky take here. Everybody’s a critic.
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