Droga5 highlights youth homelessness with powerful outdoor campaign

Droga5 has launched a striking outdoor campaign for charity We Are Mobilise, using a simple but confronting visual to highlight youth homelessness in Australia.

Created to mark Youth Homelessness Matters Day, the campaign sees children’s height charts typically found on the walls of family homes, recreated as street art across Sydney and Melbourne.

Titled No Place To Grow, the work turns a familiar symbol of childhood into a reminder of what many young Australians are missing: a stable place to call home.

Each hand-drawn chart marks the average height of Australian children aged four to twelve, accompanied by a stark message: no child should grow up on the streets.

A QR code at the base of each installation directs passers-by to a donation page supporting children and families experiencing homelessness.

The campaign is designed to make a largely hidden issue visible. Of the 28,948 children without a stable home in Australia, only a small proportion are sleeping rough. Many are living in cars, tents, couch surfing or in temporary care arrangements.

“We wanted to find a way to make people feel the scale of this crisis, not just read about it,” Noah Yang, founder of We Are Mobilise, said.

“A height chart is something many families know. It belongs on a wall at home. Seeing one on a street will hopefully stop people in their tracks and remind them that every child deserves a safe place to call home.”

Droga5 creative director Lennie Galloway described the idea as intentionally simple.

“It’s such a beautifully simple idea that shows this issue in a new light,” he said.

The campaign was developed as part of a pro bono collaboration between Droga5 and Accenture Song teams across Australia, London, Dublin and New York.

To bring the installations to life, the agency partnered with artist and photographer Simon Harsent, muralist Shaun Devenney and art studio Apparition Media.

The work will remain in place across both cities until 20 April and is supported by a broader digital out-of-home rollout.