The International Office of Thoughts and Prayers for Ukraine

Thoughts & Prayers.

10Days London, in its inimitable style and speed, has created a short film to encourage donations to the charitable foundation and leading Ukraine NGO, Come Back Alive.

Comedian Ahir Shah stars as the agent on the end of the phone taking well meaning calls from compassionate callers. They offer their thoughts and prayers to those suffering in Ukraine.

Ahir politely thanks them for their call and their thoughts (and their prayers), but gently recommends that a donation might be more useful.

"Funny you should mention it, we're actually now actively encouraging people to make donations to those helping Ukrainians being supplied with life saving equipment."

A somewhat surprising and seemingly revolutionary thought, the caller agrees this is a good idea and proceeds to donate.

Witty, relevant and most of all, speedy.

It's their thing.

The 10Days London raison d'être is to create work in, yes, you've guessed it, 10 days (or less). This, however, went from concept to reality in just 48 hours. This, in itself is quite an epic achievement but the outcome is equally in need of applause.

As we all know, thoughts and prayers are often offered in awful situations. We all feel compelled to let people know we are thinking about them and there's nothing wrong with that.

Except it doesn't 'help' as such. And in this, one of the most dire and relentlessly horrifying situations of our time, it becomes even more meaningless to those it is aimed at assisting.

So this film certainly gets to the core of it in just over a minute. The message is clear; donate. Thanks for the nice words but, donate.

I'll remember this and act upon it so mission accomplished but as usual, 10Days have landed another piece of meaningful, relevant work that goes much further than just an ad.

Donate.

This is what George White, co-founder, had to say...

"When you have a great idea with a great script for a great purpose, getting people on board is easy.

We knew every second counted—the quicker we could get this out, the quicker the donations could come in.

And honestly, our Ukrainian friend Daniel Liakh—his determination, his passion, his pain, we felt it, and it drove us."

Credits

Creative Agency: 10 Days London
Production: 10 Days London
Co-Writers: Daniel Liakh & Jolyon White
Director: Daniel Liakh
Producer: George White
DOP: Daniel Boulton
Art Director: Josh C
Sound: Dominic White
Crew: Alek Lewin, Alex Taylor
Lead Call Agent: Ahir Shar
Post trolley: Isobel Thompson
Office Worker: Tomasz Jaworski
Special Thanks to:
Adam, Dave & the team at Wherefrom.org
Lewis Davey at Idea Farm
Andrew Bloch
Dan Salkey at Small World