SEESAC kicks-off "Celebrate with Your Heart, Not Your Gun" awareness raising campaign

As the holiday season approaches, SEESAC is once again joining a chorus of responsible voices from all corners of the world alerting everyone to the inherent dangers of celebratory shooting and use of pyrotechnics.  This year our awareness raising campaign “Celebrate with your heart, not your gun” has as its centerpiece an anti-hero Joe, who unthinkingly engages in a series of dangerous behaviors and suffers the consequences. His careless actions also have negative effects on those close to him as well as on his community. The campaign kicks off on 22 December and goes on until 15 January, gradually revealing the story of Joe.

Joe’s mishaps are not randomly chosen. They are based on real incidents and current trends in the Western Balkans region. To underscore this, throughout the campaign we will also share information about real-life incidents of celebratory shooting and use of pyrotechnics that have resulted in death, injury, arrests, or simple endangerment; incidents which SEESAC gathers daily through our Armed Violence Monitoring Platform.

To amplify the message across the region, the campaign is also being implemented in three of the local languages and more information can be found on its landing pages in BCMS, ALBANIAN, MACEDONIAN.

We hope you will follow us on social media through #CelebrateWithYourHeart and #DontBeLikeJoe

The campaign is being implemented with the funding support of the European Union through its Council Decision (CFSP) 2018/1788 in support of SEESAC for the implementation of the Regional Roadmap on combating illicit arms trafficking in the Western Balkans.