Gender Creative Kids Canada Brings Gender Identity Into Canadian Classrooms
The You Inside Project is a 2018 Canadian public-service campaign created by Lg2 for Gender Creative Kids Canada, built around Sam — a Russian-nesting-doll-style educational toy whose layered construction represents the stages of a transgender child's gender-identity journey, designed to help teachers and young students develop understanding and empathy in the classroom.
Gender Creative Kids Canada launched the campaign in Canada in May 2018 after approximately two years of development in partnership with Lg2. The organisation's central objective was to address a gap in age-appropriate educational materials available to Canadian teachers navigating conversations about gender identity with children. Rather than extend an existing advertising platform, the project was conceived from the ground up as a purpose-built creative and educational intervention.
At the heart of the campaign is Sam, a toy whose nested layers each represent a different aspect of a transgender child's lived experience. Sam functions as a classroom tool, giving educators a tangible, narrative object around which conversations about identity and empathy can be anchored. According to lg2.com, 500 Sam toys were produced and distributed to Canadian schools by 2018, marking the first phase of the campaign's physical reach across the Canadian market.
The project was supported in part by a government grant, and a 2017 Kickstarter campaign sought approximately C$137,500 to fund production and distribution, according to clapboard.com. The You Inside Project sits at the intersection of product design, narrative film, and public-interest communication — a multi-format campaign that earned Gender Creative Kids Canada and Lg2 international recognition, including a Cannes Lions Silver Lion in the Design category in 2019. Clapboard assigns the campaign a score of 71 out of 100, reflecting strong creative craft and cultural relevance within the Canadian public-service context.
Gender Creative Kids Canada identified a specific and underserved need in the Canadian education system. Existing resources for teaching gender identity to young children were either too abstract for classroom use or too adult in tone to be accessible to early learners, leaving teachers without practical tools to facilitate age-appropriate conversations.
Lg2's strategic response was to reframe the communication challenge not as an awareness campaign but as a product design problem. Rather than producing a film or poster that asked adults to reflect, the agency created a physical object — Sam — that could live inside a classroom and generate conversation organically. This approach placed the campaign in direct contrast to more conventional public-service advertising from organisations such as Egale Canada, which has historically relied on digital and broadcast media to reach Canadian audiences, according to Egale Ca. The decision to lead with a tangible educational toy rather than a media placement gave The You Inside Project a durability and specificity that broadcast-led campaigns cannot easily replicate.
The broader Canadian context shaped the campaign's ambition. According to Ctvnews Ca, awareness of gender identity issues among Canadian youth and their educators had been growing through the mid-2010s, creating both demand and institutional readiness for classroom-level tools. The campaign's Kickstarter, which sought approximately C$137,500 according to clapboard.com, also served as a proof-of-concept mechanism, demonstrating public appetite for the project before full-scale distribution. Government grant support further validated the initiative's alignment with Canadian public-interest priorities. The You Inside Project was not designed to compete for media share with campaigns by peer organisations; it was designed to occupy physical space in schools — a strategic channel that most public-service advertisers in Canada do not address.
Jean-Philippe Dugal served as Art Director at Lg2 on The You Inside Project, and his role in shaping Sam's physical form was central to the campaign's creative identity. Dugal noted, according to lg2.com, that it took two years to bring Sam to life — a development timeline that reflects the depth of research and iteration behind the toy's design. Sam's nested-doll structure was not a decorative choice; each layer was engineered to represent a distinct stage in a transgender child's gender-identity development, making the object itself a narrative device rather than a mere prop.
Alexis Robin and Marc Fortin are credited in the campaign's production, contributing to the broader creative output that positioned The You Inside Project as a multi-format work spanning physical design and moving image. The campaign extended beyond the toy through an animated film, Sam's Story, produced in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada and filmmaker Rodolphe Saint-Gelais. According to lg2.com, Sam's Story was based on real case studies of transgender youth, grounding its narrative in documented lived experience rather than fictional dramatisation. The film's emotional register was further shaped by its soundtrack — a rerecording of Roxette's Listen to Your Heart, with rights donated by the band, according to lg2.com — a creative decision that added cultural resonance and intergenerational familiarity to a story aimed at children and educators alike.
SHED was identified as a partner on the broader project, contributing to the production infrastructure that allowed the campaign to function across both physical and screen-based formats. The integration of product design, documentary narrative, and licensed music within a single public-service campaign gave The You Inside Project a creative scope unusual for Canadian non-profit advertising in 2018, and it is this layered craft that the Cannes Lions jury recognised when awarding a Silver Lion in the Design category in 2019, as reported by Strategyonline Ca.
The You Inside Project produced documented results across both industry recognition and physical distribution. Lg2 won a Silver Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2019 in the Design category for the campaign, as reported by strategyonline.ca. The campaign also received an ADC Awards Silver in the Product Design, Design for Good — Single category in 2019, as reported by Grenier Qc Ca. These two independent international awards confirm the campaign's standing as a benchmark for design-led public-service communication.
On the distribution side, 500 Sam toys were produced and placed in Canadian schools according to lg2.com, representing a deliberate and finite first-phase deployment. The Kickstarter campaign, which according to clapboard.com sought approximately C$137,500, served as both a funding mechanism and a public signal of community support for the project. No verified Effie Awards, One Show, D&AD, Clios, Webby Awards, or WARC Awards results have been found for the campaign, according to clapboard.com.
No broader audience reach or classroom engagement metrics are publicly available for The You Inside Project. What the campaign demonstrates structurally, however, is the effectiveness of product-as-medium in public-service advertising. By placing a physical object inside Canadian schools rather than purchasing media space, Gender Creative Kids Canada and Lg2 created a touchpoint with a captive and relevant audience — children and teachers — that traditional broadcast or digital placements could not have replicated with equivalent specificity. The campaign's Clapboard Score of 71 out of 100 reflects strong creative and strategic execution, with room acknowledged for expanded reach and documented impact data.
The You Inside Project is a 2018 Canadian public-service campaign created by Lg2 for Gender Creative Kids Canada. It centres on Sam, a Russian-nesting-doll-style educational toy representing stages of a transgender child's gender-identity development, designed to help Canadian teachers and children build understanding and empathy in the classroom.
Lg2 created The You Inside Project as agency of record for Gender Creative Kids Canada. Art Director Jean-Philippe Dugal led the toy's design over approximately two years. The campaign also involved the National Film Board of Canada, filmmaker Rodolphe Saint-Gelais, and production partner SHED, according to lg2.com.
Lg2 won a Silver Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2019 in the Design category for The You Inside Project, as reported by strategyonline.ca. The campaign also received an ADC Awards Silver in Product Design, Design for Good — Single in 2019, as reported by grenier.qc.ca.
500 Sam toys were produced and distributed to Canadian schools as part of the first phase of The You Inside Project, according to lg2.com. A 2017 Kickstarter campaign sought approximately C$137,500 to fund production and distribution of the toy, according to clapboard.com.
Sam's Story is an animated film produced in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada and filmmaker Rodolphe Saint-Gelais. According to lg2.com, it was based on real case studies of transgender youth and featured a rerecording of Roxette's Listen to Your Heart, with rights donated by the band, extending the campaign beyond the physical toy.
The You Inside Project received a Clapboard Score of 71 out of 100. This score reflects strong creative craft and cultural relevance within the Canadian public-service advertising context, recognising the campaign's design-led approach and international award performance while acknowledging the limited scope of publicly available audience impact data.
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