USA For UNHCR which supports the work of the UN Refugee Agency, has launched “Dignity Without Delay,” a new campaign challenging how the world sees refugees.   

The campaign went live this week, to coincide with “UN Week,” in New York, the annual September gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly. It was developed in collaboration with Schaaf, an independent, women-owned creative agency that led creative development and produced in-house. M+R serves as media partner.  

The campaign includes ads in The New York Times and digital out of home placements throughout NYC. The intent is to elevate the global refugee crisis among the key decision makers attending the UN gathering.  

Rather than dwell on the horrors and immediate needs of displacement, the campaign focuses on the skills, ambitions and futures refugees can still build if society invests in long-term solutions.  

It introduces five refugees through the futures they are pursuing: Maya, a trailblazing aviation engineer in the United Kingdom; Cadet, a baker in Burundi; Pang, a community physiotherapist in Kenya; Suliman, a blacksmith in Syria; and Varvara, a dance scholar in Slovakia.    

“Dignity Without Delay is about recognizing that being a refugee should be a chapter in someone’s life, not their whole story,” says Anastasia Fitz, Senior Director of Brand Strategy at USA for UNHCR. “Refugees have skills, ambitions and dreams for their future. This campaign asks us to see refugees differently: not defined by the crisis that displaced them, but by what they are capable of building next.”   

The campaign amplifies UNHCR’s new “50 by 35” vision, an ambition to help millions of refugees move beyond prolonged reliance on humanitarian aid and toward greater self-reliance and lasting solutions by 2035.