With the help of videos, podcasts and posts on online platforms such as Instagram, “Love Better” wants to encourage young New Zealanders to leave a failed love and the associated pain behind. “Breakups suck…but you can turn them around. Be in control of your feelings,” reads a video accompanying the campaign. The new campaign is aimed at the “community of newly separated people” – it wants to help them prevent “a little lovesickness turning into great pain”.
A young person affected is determined in the video: “I’ll do it, honestly,” he says. “This is getting ridiculous, it’s getting so out of control.” “I have to get over her,” he says – and blocks his lost crush in the online networks.
High suicide rate among adolescents
According to the opinion research institute Kantar, six out of ten young New Zealanders between the ages of 16 and 24 have experienced a broken relationship – mostly “hurting experiences”. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund Unicef, the country has one of the highest suicide rates among young people among industrialized countries worldwide.
According to Minister Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who is responsible for the campaign, the government wants to invest the equivalent of around 3.7 million euros in the project over the next three years: “We know that separations hurt. We want to support our young people – and let them know that there is a way out without harming yourself and others.”
