"Vakeel Babu": A fictional short-film advocating gender sensitization in the Indian judiciary

Vakeel Babu is an entertaining, fictional Hindi language short film (with English Subtitles) starring renowned Bollywood actors and expected to release on a prominent digital platform, supported by an on-ground advocacy campaign. Globally, domestic violence cases against women increased sharply during Covid-19, renewing a sense of urgency around ensuring access to justice. Through in-depth primary research with over 120 diverse stakeholders including domestic violence survivors, civil society organizations, lawyers, medical experts, and police across 3 Indian cities, it was discovered that the lack of gender sensitization in the judiciary is a key reason for its inaccessibility. To tackle this, Vakeel Babu was created. It's the story of Shiraz Hassan, a young lawyer, distracted with chasing success through his digital-video channel. He is approached online by an anonymous female victim with a powerful abuser. Will he do justice to the challenge? The film is an appeal to lawyers to take an empathetic, sensitive approach in securing their clients' rights, no matter how unwieldy the system. It is a means to engage multiple stakeholders to create systemic change within the judiciary.Vakeel Babu leverages storytelling to advocate for on-ground change. It is designed to maximize impact by making use of successful SBCC strategies, such as developing the protagonist as a transitional character. The impact campaign includes advocacy with legal groups, law students and law colleges, bar associations, and various multi-media outlets to advocate for gender-sensitive lawyering and to make access to justice more inclusive and equitable.

Food, Frustrations, and Family Dynamics: Using Film to Promote Joint Household Decision-Making

Improving women's nutritional status is essential to break the intergenerational cycle of undernutrition. A women's household labor load affects her ability to earn income and the time she has available for self-care and childcare. Male involvement in household tasks and childcare decreases women's labor burden, allows women increased time for optimal feeding practices, and increases fathers' emotional attachment to their children. Joint decision-making between couples has the potential to increase the consumption of, and allocation of household resources to acquire nutritious foods. TOMAK developed a low budget film in collaboration with a local organization, Ba Futuru, which focuses on household decision-making, the allocation of household resources for nutritious foods, and the role of fathers and grandmothers in influencing family nutrition. To assess the effectiveness of the film as an SBCC tool, a questionnaire was administered to audiences prior to watching the film. The questionnaire was re-administered three months later following two film screenings and discussions. Results showed: increased frequency of protein consumption, increased allocation of limited resources to purchase protein foods, improved attitudes towards increased communication between spouses and role of grandmothers in supporting household nutrition. TOMAK demonstrated a low-cost approach to effectively evaluate the impact of quality SBCC products that can support government counterparts to measure behavior change. Results from this film assessment helped TOMAK to better understand how effective its SBCC product is, while providing a basis for discussions with Ministry of Health and partners on how to improve evaluation strategies for SBCC materials going forward.

Innovative SBCC interventions through the #BilumCampaign: Harnessing Papua New Guinea's traditional culture to advance gender equality and bodily autonomy

Harnessing the idea of the bilum as "surprisingly familiar" the campaign builds on the bilum patterns to reintroduce haus mahn (man's house) and haus meri (woman's house) conversations in safe spaces about social expectations on gender equality, reproductive health and bodily autonomy. We leverage influential elders from PNG for discussions about a modern PNG identity and social norms for men and women, including the need for access to, and information about reproductive health for the health and wellbeing of all Papua New Guineans. Historically, bilum patterns reaffirmed social norms and strengthened trust between generations. For example, the onset of puberty marked by the full diamond bilum pattern was when younger girls entered a Haus Meri (woman's house) to learn about their bodies and build their social network. Today, knowledge of how to "read" the bilum has almost disappeared, as have the conversations that once reaffirmed women's social authority and sisterhood. When such traditions are lost, cultural identity is also at risk, making the development journey more difficult. By leveraging past wisdom to recreate safe spaces for reflection ahead of the country's 50th anniversary, the Bilum Campaign empowers a generation of Papua New Guineans to reconnect with their original vision for development and wellbeing.

NIAMBIE! - Tell me!

"Niambie!" Or "Tell Me!", as it is translated into English is a nationwide youth centered radio show in Tanzania with a strong and growing social media presence. We focus on delivering gender transformative content. Utilizing multiple platforms, we encourage discussion on topics relating to promoting gender equality, including challenging the idea that specific careers should be assigned to specific genders. We get our audiences to tell us their views, so we can build on them, address them and if necessary, correct them. So that after consuming our content they leave empowered and knowledgeable. Our weekly radio show airs on Saturday. Each week we tackle a different topic that highlights issues of relevance going on in our community, addressing and challenging any norms which hinder gender equality. Norms which we have identified to be prevalent through our research. We then use testimonials from relevant sources, SMS's and comments from our audience, which we read out on our shows, as well as experts to provide a well-rounded, solution-based show. In addition, we host Community Live Events which bring issues facing the community directly to them. A nationwide survey consisting of 4005 participants, in 2020, shows us that radio and mobile phones are the main media used in Tanzania, this is one of the motivations to having a multimedia approach. Research suggests that the public like consuming entertainment, comedy, and drama the most, among other things. Therefore, we try and package our content using these formats to have better reach, engagement, and impact.