Account manager Ryan Fisher is off for a bit to Recife in Brazil to work with the charity GTP+.
GTP+ was created in December 2000 to be organization run by people living with AIDS and HIV who could  develop prevention work in order to contribute to the confrontation of the epidemic.

Ryan's stint out there is part of Wieden + Kennedy's involvement with TIE (The International Exchange), which also saw account director Penny Brough spending a month working with a community group in Brazil last year. The idea behind TUE is to find and select communications professionals who currently work in communications companies from developed
countries and pair them up with suitable NGOs in developing countries.

Our involvement with TIE was originated by our former planning director Stuart Smith, who is quoted on the TIE website:

At Wieden + Kennedy, we're not do-gooders, but we want to do more good.
People in our industry are experts at helping bring about behavioural
change. So why can't we use this special power for good, sometimes,
rather than evil? This is why TIE is such a timely, wonderful and
important creation, and why Wieden + Kennedy got involved at the
outset. It affords our individuals the opportunity to contribute
something meaningful to communities that genuinely need what our people
can offer. The NGO* Plan (in Recife, Brazil) were thrilled with the
positive contribution made by Penny Brough (the first of many
'exchangees' we will be sending from Wieden + Kennedy). Furthermore,
Penny gathered an array of rewarding, rich and broad experiences that
will be of enormous benefit to herself, and to Wieden + Kennedy, for
many years to come.

Stuart's still a big supporter of TIE, as you can see from this pic of him taken at Ryan's fund-raising party:

 Ryan will be writing a blog whilst he is out there to share some of the things that he will be doing. You can read it here: pescadorembrasil.

Lucy writes:

I spent Wednesday holed up 3 floors down in the P3 space
beneath Westminster University. I was taking part in a workshop day, 'Cascade' an educational programme which is part of this year’s Onedotzero
‘Adventures in Motion’ Festival.

It was an experimental education workshop mixing students of
different ages and from different schools and colleges with different cross
disciplinary practices. 50 students from Camberwell, Chelsea, LCC and
Westminster University worked in 6 groups to document, map and record a
response to a piece of work by Interactive Light Architect Jason Bruge, with
their final concepts being some sort of city intervention.

Wednesday was creative process day and myself and Tony
Phillips, Creative Director of Digital Communications at Imagination were asked
to give presentations to the students on our respective companies and our
creative practices and talk about some examples of collaborative city based
projects we have worked on. I talked the guys through Run London North vs South
and the Nokia Regent Street Christmas Lights and handed out Dan Wieden
inspirational badges which seemed to go down well.

The P3 space is a huge, industrial, concrete bunker, the
place where apparently the concrete for the Westway was tested.

More educational workshops are going to be happening in the
coming weeks with more colleges and schools get involved adding further
momentum to the Cascade project.

If you fancy seeing the results the finished projects will
be presented at the Education Symposium at the BFI Southbank and Imax on Friday
14^th November.

Plus the wider Onedotzero festival will also be running
between the 14^th– 16^th November.

As ever it’s the best place to check out the world’s most
innovative motion arts and entertainment.

Thanks for having me Sophie and Shane, I loved the project and the bunker.

www.onedotzero.com