Rebuilding resilience in the youngest refugees

Moving Minds Alliance is a funders’ collaborative convened to scale up the financing, policies and leadership needed to support young children and families affected by crisis and displacement globally.

We have been involved with the organisation since its formation in 2018, developing its visual identity and each website iteration. The site was significantly updated in 2022 to reflect the network’s growing membership and increasing digital needs.

Making the case for investment

The international response to humanitarian crises understandably prioritises basic needs (food and shelter) above all else. Yet, the challenges in resolving the root causes of displacement mean that many children spend their entire childhoods in adverse environments, exposed to violence and stress that have long-lasting adverse effects on their development.

Moving Minds Alliance’s ambition is to change the face of humanitarian action—one that addresses more than just the basic needs and focuses on protection, education, nutrition, and mental and physical health and well-being.

It was, therefore, vital that the website clearly makes a case for action and the efficacy of the alliance’s strategic approach. Our Impact Experience (IX) design approach guided the network towards a website architecture that simplifies a complex issue into a compelling narrative that demands attention.

A humanising identity

Working in collaboration with stakeholders from across the coalition, we sought to create a visual identity system that humanised the subject matter – explicitly avoiding the exploitative style so readily associated with children in extreme environments. A bold type style with an active and contrasting colour scheme creates an urgent and emotive feel while remaining approachable and human.

The dotted arrow mark takes a wandering path, calling back to each crisis-affected family’s personal journeys and stories. This was combined with a strategy for using images—only documentary photos of real families in recognisable and relatable family situations are used.

Championing the cause of child refugees

A vital aspect of the coalition’s approach is the consistent development of research, thought leadership and guidance for the network to build momentum with global stakeholders, policy leaders and funders.

The website includes powerful publishing capabilities, enabling the organisation to build a central repository of Moving Minds Alliance-authored tools and resources and collate and curate supporting materials produced across the network. Everything has been produced with scalability in mind, and we anticipate expanding the functionality as the library and its readership grow.