Bell Bajao (Ring the Bell!) - Bring Domestic Violence to a Halt

Breakthrough’s unique holistic human rights approach – addressing gender and sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, and religion – enables public advocacy and provides vulnerable and marginalized populations with the opportunity to promote meaningful public dialogue about women’s human rights in the mainstream. We use innovative mass media to frame public agendas combined with grassroots community mobilization to create a sense of ownership and personal association with issues. This approach increases skills and knowledge and motivates participants to carry on peer-to-peer outreach at multiple levels within their own communities.

Bell Bajao uses creative media (including PSAs, music, animations, blogs, social media networks, and websites) and community mobilization (including workshops, trainings, film screenings, street theater, and puppet shows) to transform attitudes, catalyze public dialogue, achieve scale, and engage new audiences – including youth – in advancing human rights. Our integrated strategy:

• Builds community awareness, knowledge, and action to eliminate violence
against women and social exclusion of marginalized communities;

• Builds the capacity of individuals from marginalized communities to
become advocates for women’s rights including the right to live free-of-
violence;

• Supports the capacity of local government bodies, non-government
organizations (NGOs), and community-based organizations (CBOs) and
networks, to address violence against women and social exclusion; and,

• Documents and disseminates shared-learning through workshops, trainings
and community mobilization around interventions that address women’s
human rights.

As a leading resource for multimedia tools that engage constituencies on issues of women’s human rights, and a strong proponent of shared learning and resources, Breakthrough has been recognized by countless organizations for our role in the field. Breakthrough’s materials – including videos, advertisements, workshop curriculum, discussion guides, and toolkits – are often appropriated by partner organizations and other NGOs and CBOs to enhance their messages and teachings. As a result, these campaigns have considerable impact at three levels: (1) individuals; (2) communities; and, (3) national and government agencies.

Through strategic partnerships, Breakthrough’s Bell Bajao campaign has achieved extraordinary success, reaching more than 130 million and prompting community involvement and public awareness throughout India. The mass media campaign was designed pro bono by global advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather. The ads were distributed by major television networks with support from The Ministry of Women and Child Development in India, a partnership brokered by the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women. Additionally, Breakthrough collaborates with countless community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, self-help groups, corporates, youth groups, and other organizations to facilitate community mobilization efforts – including trainings, workshops, and events.

In tackling the social problem of violence against women and gender-discrimination there is the potential for problems and resistance to interventions at the community level to manifest – it is not easy to change and influence deeply entrenched social norms and behaviors. To this end, Breakthrough’s comprehensive media strategy integrates bottom-up community mobilization and outreach interventions to increase knowledge and awareness around violence against women, and slowly affect social norms to promote and enhance the rejection and condemnation of violent behavior. Bell Bajao also targets and includes local law enforcement bodies, and community-based partners to lobby for action against violence against women.

Assuming that community knowledge and awareness around violence against women increases, a related risk might be possible backlash from the community if systems are not in place to support those seeking to address such violence; also, there might be stigma associated with women actually accessing the law.

To combat these challenges, Breakthrough focuses on developing collaborations, networks and partnerships among organizations already engaged in combating violence against women. Breakthrough also engages with local law enforcement as partners, and works with them and key community leaders to jointly craft locally appropriate solutions and community-based strategies against gender-based violence.

Additionally, Breakthrough’s media strategy will focus on promoting social pressure to improve service delivery at the community level, and our community mobilization strategy will identify and involve key stakeholders and local law enforcement officials from the community such as panchayat leaders and protection officers, to support action on this issue. Breakthrough will also reach out to and involve local opinion leaders and other stakeholders to develop appropriate community strategies and plans.

Bell Bajao applies a holistic strategy, drawing upon evidence-based and recommended best practices to address the problem of violence against women. We will focus on providing technical assistance and support to build the capacity of local organizations including local government bodies, non-governmental organizations, and community-based organizations, to develop programs and interventions to address violence against women.

Breakthrough believes that it is critical to engage with local organizations and provide a forum for diverse communities to resolve conflicts and promote human rights together. Subsequently, we build capacity at two levels: (1) developing partnerships, networks and leadership training for other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), government agencies, and others; and (2) grassroots outreach and education for individuals, including peer-to-peer education programs.

We work directly with a cross-section of partnerships to advance human rights and build advocates for equality within homes, communities, and institutions. Specifically, Breakthrough works with youth and community leaders, as well as members of socially excluded and most vulnerable communities including women, dalits, HIV-positive women, and religious minorities in two identified target states of India: Uttar Pradesh (UP), and Karnataka to build a strong civil society movement by using media, capacity building, community mobilization, and a wide range of public advocacy tools.

Partners are directly and indirectly engaged in all stages of program planning, including need assessment, concept testing, evaluation, messaging, training, and mass mobilization. We train partner organizations to use Breakthrough material and incorporate our rights-based, gender-sensitive approach into their own teachings, as they develop independent workshops and trainings that facilitate understanding of women’s rights issues.

•124 million reached by the Bell Bajao campaign on television (according to media planning agency Mindshare);

•An average of 3,250 unique visitors view the Bell Bajao website – bellbajao.org – each month to view updated blog posts, contribute blog content, and to download media and educational resource material;

•The Bell Bajao Blog regularly features posts about topics of domestic violence, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS, including personal stories and comments of support and assistance from visitors to the site:

•400-percent increase in website traffic with the introduction of bellbajao.org;

•Bell Bajao ads appeared throughout India, as well as in the United Arab Emirates, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and some countries in Africa;

•Primary website visitors are from: India, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, China, Thailand, Qatar, and Nepal;

•1,775+ people participated in Breakthrough’s direct education outreach training programs; and

•50,000+ people, including women and members from vulnerable and marginalized sections of the community, participated in workshops conducted by Breakthrough trainers in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and Karnataka.

•Breakthrough products, materials, and information, including three video ads, video van material including flyers, pamphlets, posters, nutrition booklets, manuals are widely distributed among key stakeholders, including:

o 1,500 partners – HIV-positive networks, community-based organizations,
youth, government agencies, and others
o 42 partners at intervention centers across our target states
o 60+ protection officers from the states of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh,
Karnataka, Maharashtra, Assam, Orissa, Mizoram, Andhra Pradesh,
Rajasthan, and Kerala, and
o 30 Assistant-Sub Inspectors with the Delhi Police
o 21 Legal Aid organizations across the country through our partnership
with the Human Rights Law Network

Through the Bell Bajao campaign, Breakthrough creates an enabling environment at the community level to reduce violence against women, particularly women facing social exclusion, including dalit women and women living with HIV/AIDS (WLHA), and enable them to access their rights through an integrated strategy to build community awareness, knowledge, and action around the issue of violence against women and social exclusion.

Breakthrough’s media ads, traveling video vans, website and blog use an intersectional community education strategy that advances women’s rights by addressing multiple identities – gender, class, ethnicity, caste – and calling on men and boys to proactively intervene in situations of gender-based violence. Through partnerships with government agencies, community organizations, non-governmental organizations, and youth groups, among others,
Bell Bajao has already reached more than 124 million, prompting community involvement and public awareness throughout India. In the next phase of the campaign, Breakthrough will reinforce the message of Bell Bajao to significantly increase support within key influencers, community gatekeepers, other local organizations, and youth.

The Rights Advocates trained by Breakthrough through a comprehensive year-long education program addresses issues such as sexuality, gender, HIV/AIDS, and domestic violence using a comprehensive human rights perspective. The stories of our Rights Advocates are documented and shared as videos on our website and on YouTube.

Breakthrough’s work has had national and international influence on other orgainizations, including NDTV Image (a national television channel in India), which has partnered with us to take a stand against domestic violence through their popular television series Jyoti, which featured Bell Bajao in the October 20, 2009 episode. Additionally, organizations in other countries are adapting the Bell Bajao ads to present in their own unique cultural contexts, for example, the National Communication Campaign on Prevention of Domestic Violence in Vietnam is now featuring a television spot inspired by Bell Bajao. This is the first step in Breakthrough’s efforts to bring the campaign global – sharing our message to bring domestic violence to a halt with people throughout the world.