Cheil Chile and Mindy.cl Illuminate the "Silenced" Issue of Environmental Activists' Deaths in Latin America

Apr. 24, 2023

Cheil Worldwide Chile announces the impact of its campaign "The Activist Reserve", which spotlights the urgent issue of murdered environmental campaigners in Latin America, for Mindy.cl, the online psychology platform.

Environmental activists are murdered at unprecedented rates in Latin America, and most of these deaths are disguised as apparent suicides. Cheil Worldwide and Mindy.cl demonstrated that these activists must not only fight for nature, but for their lives, and the success of "The Activist Reserve" has directly contributed to changes in law in Chile. The country’s Law of Nature bill is now legislating in favor of activists and the environment.

Mindy.cl, Chile's leading online psychology platform that provides psychology and online consultation services, has the ambition to position itself as a brand concerned with the issues that affect people. So the brand rose to the challenge of tackling this critical societal issue with "The Activist Reserve" campaign. 

The Activist Reserve - which launched on March 29, 2023 and will run until September 2023 - is a program of psychological assessments proving the stable mental health of activists that can demonstrate no intention to take their own lives. The program utilised the suicidal ideation scale and Mindy.cl’s expert psychologists to evaluate and assess 500 key activists, setting a clinical and legal precedent about their mental health. 

In order to include as many environmental activists as possible, Cheil Chile recruited eight activists from three leading environmental NGOs from different parts of our country. By obtaining initial psychological tests, it showed that they had no intention of taking their own lives. Through this powerful insight, Cheil Chile caught the attention of press and politicians, by sharing the activists’ results through direct marketing.

To spread the message, Cheil used social networks to engage with NGOs across their channels on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, as well with the networks of activists. The campaign was launched with video and social content, as well as earned media through local press. 

The Activist Reserve engaged more than 100,000 Chileans in just 24 hours after launch, generating over $27m in free media to date for Mindy.cl and the "Law of Nature" bill to protect environmental activists.

 

The reach and impact of "The Activist Reserve" upon key parliamentarians, including Maisa Rojas, Chile's Minister of the Environment, has contributed to changes in Chile’s "The Law of Nature", which is now legislating in favor of activists and the environment. Politicians like Rojas responded publicly to the campaign. Since April 2023, the government has been promoting a bill - Law 19.300 - to modify the current law to protect environmental activists. The Government is also consulting its citizens to create a protection protocol for defenders of the environment and human rights.

Alexander Rengifo, co-founder of Mindy.cl, commented:

"The Activist Reserve demonstrates in an impeccable way that our psychology service really helps to save lives. We’re proud to create a campaign that protects those who protect the environment".

 

Felipe Ortiz, Executive Creative Director of Cheil Chile, added:

"When we understand that the problem of nature really is in people, it is the first step to find a real solution. The Activists Reserve seeks to validate their mental health, and thus be able to defend the first link in the protection of the environment. This is a faithful example that big problems can be solved with small changes, which reflects the thinking of our team. We applaud Alexander and the team at Mindy.cl for the courage to position their brand in our society by drawing attention to such a strong topic in our continent, which is often "silenced".

 

Environmental activist, Lilian Plaza of NGO, Ojos de Mar, said:

"The government is carrying out dialogues with civil society organizations, with the objective of knowing their impressions and experiences regarding the threats or dangers that they have detected in the exercise of their activities, and about the type of measure that it suggests incorporating into instruments that can protect defenders".