Breakthrough, in collaboration with The Ministry of Women and Child Development, UNIFEM and the UN Trust Fund launches Breakthrough’s third multimedia campaign— ‘Bell Bajao’— a call to both men and women to bring domestic violence to a halt. Domestic violence affects everyone and so to stop violence both men and women must work towards changing cultural norms and holding violators accountable. The campaign is designed by India’s leading advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather, pro bono.

‘Bell Bajao’-- the awareness and intervention ad campaign, will be disseminated across Doordarshan and private television channels, radio channels, press and the internet. Video vans will follow with on the ground activation across 6 districts over 150 days to begin with, building awareness on issues of Domestic Violence and women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. The campaign's online avatar is www.bellbajao.org. The site targets the youth, and helps them recognise the phenomenon and engage with the issue using a variety of tools like a blog and interactive games. This venture has been supported by online partners such as The Viewspaper, Zapak, Contests2Win, Ibibo and Blank Noise.

Speaking on the importance of awareness about and action against Domestic Violence, the Minister for Women and Child Development, Renuka Chaudhury said, “The campaign comes well with the notification of the Act on prevention of domestic violence and shall be a step towards ensuring the implementation of the law.” Elaborating on the unique media strategy, Sonali Khan, Director, Communications, at Breakthrough said, “The campaign is unique as it calls for men to intervene in bringing Domestic Violence to halt. We hope this media campaign will create the necessary noise and contribute towards curbing one of the biggest social challenges we face. I request all media to support our initiative whole heartedly”. Zenobia Pithawala, Senior Director, Ogilvy & Mather said, "The conceptualization of the campaign was truly challenging as we wanted to ensure an action and behavior change element to be the key takeaway from the creative”.

About Breakthrough

Breakthrough is an innovative, high-impact international human rights organisation, using the power of popular culture, media, and education to transform public attitudes and promote values of equality, justice, and dignity around the world. We are a non-profit organisation and are currently focused in India and the US on issues like violence against women, HIV/AIDS, immigration policy, youth and community leadership, and human rights education.  

Breakthrough created the ground breaking music album – ‘Mann Ke Manjeere’ in collaboration with Shubha Mudgal, Prasoon Joshi, Shantanu Moitra, Shujit Sircar and Mita Vashisht. Between 2005 - 07, Breakthrough released two award winning mass and multi-media campaigns— ‘What Kind Of A Man Are You?’ and ‘Is This Justice?’ They took on the challenge of centre staging women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and the resulting stigma and discrimination associated with it.

Breakthrough is building trained youth and community leaders to reinforce the media messages. Through capacity building and life skills programmes, we enable youth groups and community members to become change agents. Visit www.breakthrough.tv for more information.

Please Contact:
Sonali Khan: +919810895704
                      sonali@breakthrough.tv
Vartika Mishra: +9191690060
                      vartika@breakthrough.tv
Nandini J Singh: +919871467112
                       nandni@hanmermsl.com

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