BRANDAID Project Launches "The Toy Project"

"Poverty Needs Marketing."

Serge Jolimeau. Master Artisan of Croix des Bouquets Haiti .

TORONTO , Dec. 10 /CNW/ - BRANDAID Project (www.brandaidproject.com) is a North American success story of how 3 Canadians ( Tony Pigott - the CEO of JWT Canada , a leading Canadian ad agency and Cam Brohman - a third world development expert with over 30 years of experience and Paul Haggis - the Oscar winning writer/director), partnered with David Belle - a New York film producer and director to create this organization that is fulfilling its founders' dreams of providing a solution to global poverty that combines Branding, Modern Marketing and Design Innovation to grow artisan businesses across the developing world.

Brandaid Project's latest initiative is "The Toy Project" which will be unveiled at the Ghetto Biennale (www.yoonsoo.com/ghetto) in Port au Prince Haiti this month.

    
                               The Toy Project
    

Play is a child's work and toys are their tools. A homemade toy industry once flourished in the slums of Port au Prince . The toys, made from recycled materials, were always affordable to the working poor. Pull toys were hand made from tin cans salvaged from the dump. Replicas of cars, trucks and buses emerged from the flattened tin of powdered milk cans. There was magic in them and for countless impoverished children these toys were the stuff of dreams. The toy makers were artisans who crafted the ladles, braziers and cooking utensils from scrap tin. They let people know that we may be poor but we can still give our kids a little homemade joy. Haiti has lost many things that make life worth living. Hardly anyone remembers the homemade toys of Cite Soleil.

The Toy Project will resurrect the indigenous toy industry. One of the last surviving master artisan toy makers has been located and has begun training young people with the aim of seeding a new toy making sector in Haiti . This will surely create a few new entrepreneurs but it will also begin to restore the creativity and imagination that only toys can give to the life of a child.

For further information: Cam Brohman, [email protected], [phone]; Tony Pigott, [email protected], [phone]