I showed my class two YouTube videos from Amnesty International that promote their letter writing campaigns. The videos use spare black and white imagery and signatures, written in the air, are used by victims of human rights abuses to escape their persecutors. The video above did provoke a few giggles, because, I suspect, the character animation has a bit of humor to it despite the seriousness of the issues being portrayed. The video below is more powerful. It more frankly addresses the fact that human rights violations are taking place and some of its subjects are children (e.g. child soldiers).
Not all of the students understood at first that the signatures were meant to be their own, and the purpose of the video was to encourage the viewer to write, but they cleared that up after a short discussion. I hope the videos have some long term effect, because pretty promptly after the brief discussion they tried to convince me that I should show the YouTube video of the “Evolution of Dance“.