Truck Art Child Finder: How Pakistan’s Mobile Art Form Helped Bring Missing Children Home

Description

An example of a richly painted truck in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, thousands of children go missing every year. It is usually hard to find them, as often they are quickly taken to remote areas of the country with no internet access or other communication infrastructures. In 2016, Samar Minallah Khan, a Pakistani filmmaker and rights activist, wondered how truck art could be used to help find missing children. 

To Samar Khan, combining truck art and missing children seemed like a perfect combination. Truck art is extremely popular in Pakistan that dates back thousands of years, with it even being an inspiration for many artists and a whole line of kitchenware. Trucks are also able to get extremely far and go to every corner of the country. With this, Samar Khan got two sponsors, Berger Paints, a paint company, and BBDO Pakistan, an advertising company, and partnered with NGO Roshi Hleplinet. With their help, Samar Khan created the Trucks Art Child Finder campaign. This campaign reached out to the parents and family members of missing children and provided pictures and contact information to give to various truck artists. They painted on the back of twenty trucks using the information.

Truck Art Childfinder. Video submitted by Khawar Latif Khan.

This campaign turned the trucks into mobile billboards that reached across the country. It brought awareness and publicity to the problem as it was covered by the media around the globe. With this, people learned how to report such crimes and to seek help for them. As reported as of 2021 by Arab News, seven children have been found through this initiative.

Connection to Mobile Networked Creativity

This example of Mobile Networked Creativity is one of many where it is used as activism and engaged art. This creative practice brought visibility to a major issue in a country that needed a solution. While it does not stop children from being kidnapped, it gives them a better chance of being found through a creative solution and mobile vehicles. It also allowed not only Pakistanis, but people globally to be educated about the issue while providing the different communities with avenues for civic engagement and social connection.

A truck artist painting a portrait of a missing child onto the back of a truck for the project, Truck Art Child Finder.

Location

Pakistan

To Learn More

Documenting creative practices that emerge within situations of hardship and resource constraints around the world.