Sizweni Hear Us election campaign focuses on children

Communication strategist Sarah Britten, who has previously worked with MMA, briefed Luke and Tracey Preston of Pixelslave to design the website, which uses innovative parallax design instead of traditional blocks of text.

Kyle-Ben Snyders of Paperjet Studios turned the designs into an interactive website that show a boy and a girl who walk past an informal settlement, a school and along a city street to tell the story of the challenges facing South Africa's children.

South Africa's political parties largely gloss over children's issues in their election manifestos. According to UNICEF, over 18 million South Africans are under the age of 18 and the consequences of the country's policies on children will be felt for many decades to come. Once the elections are over the Sizweni campaign will shift to holding to account those political parties that are elected to power.

Public power

The public can help to make children a priority when they go to the polls on May 7.

1. Ask politicians and political parties what they plan to do for South Africa's children. Have a look at Sizweni website for a quick and easy guide to the most important issues. Write to your newspaper or news website, tag the campaign on Facebook and tweet politicians directly.

2. Ask the media to give more coverage to children's issues. We pay attention to what the media covers. Use Facebook and Twitter, call your local radio stations, write to your newspaper, text your TV station. You have lots of power as a consumer of media, so use it.

3. Ask everyone you know to do the same. The Sizweni campaign is restricted to social media because of budget limitations, but you can help spread the word everywhere.

Our children's lives will not change for the better unless the people who can vote demand change for those who cannot. For more information, go to http://sizweni.net, follow @Sizweni_HearUS or on Facebook.