International Women’s Day (IWD) is a big opportunity for voices to be heard on a range of issues worldwide.
This year we are focussing on IWD as:
- An important opportunity to raise awareness for women’s rights.
- A chance to learn more about gender disparity and inequality across today’s social, political and financial realms.
- A moment to pay our respects for the millions before us who have fought to protect women’s rights, and acknowledge that everyone has a part to play in continuing their work and the progress that has been made so far in challenging gender inequity.
Sadly, one of the many challenges that women still face today is violence and harassment. This can come in many forms; it can be an unwanted touch or remark, a look or physical abuse and marginalisation.
Shockingly, 71% of women have experienced sexual harassment in a public space. (UN Women).
Our work on the Safer Exeter partnership’s city-wide campaign
We have recently developed a campaign for the Safer Exeter partnership that directly addresses the issue of harassment in public spaces. The campaign aims to reduce violence towards women and girls by encouraging bystanders to safely and skillfully intervene.
The partnership includes Devon County Council, Exeter City Council, the Police, the Fire and Rescue Service, University of Exeter, Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and other community groups and local businesses.
The group works to ensure Exeter remains a safe city and proactively tackles antisocial and criminal behaviour, including abuse and violence against women and girls, hate crime, extremism and organised crime.
We developed a multi-channel campaign with communications in a variety of places across Exeter city centre as well as on social media, targeted primarily at men aged 18-35.
The communications feature bespoke creatives using bold typography and striking visuals, to capture attention and incite action and change.
The goal: we want to raise awareness of harassment towards women in Exeter and promote free bystander training, run by a local initiative Kindling Interventions.
We marked the start of the 6 week campaign with a launch event in Princesshay on February 20 2023, staging a giant public projection, where some of the campaign graphics were projected onto the old Topshop building in Exeter.
Since then it has been great to see some great TV and radio coverage including a main interview slot on the BBC Spotlight TV breakfast and lunchtime bulletins, as well as digital coverage in Devon Live, Greatest Hits Radio, BBC News online, Exeter Daily, Devon Herald and more.
Why this campaign is so important
We are very proud to have worked on this project and support such an important cause. We love working with positive impact brands, but this campaign is so much more than just helping others. As a business, our team is 80% female, and nearly all the women in our agency have experienced some form of harassment in public.
We believe we have a responsibility not just to the local community, but to our own team, to raise awareness of harassment, and give others the tools to spot it, prevent it and intervene safely.
Find out more
To find out more about the Safer Exeter campaign and to sign up to the free bystander training, please visit: www.exeter.gov.uk/bystander
For more information on this year’s International Women’s Day, the 2023 theme, missions and partners, please visit: www.internationalwomensday.com
If you’re interested in getting our support to launch your next public information/ safety campaign, please drop us a message at hello@program.agency – we’d love to chat!
08/03/2023