#MakeGirlsVoicesCount: A Digital Action Campaign

Introduction

This digital action campaign titled, 'Make Girls Voices Count', seeks to transform girls perception of themselves and their stories by amplifying their voices using radio and social media and providing the skills to empower them. And mobilizing community action towards girls empowerment through radio call-ins and social media engagement.

The Campaign would run on the radio for 3 months and mobilize community action towards girls' empowerment. Radios are everywhere, with at least 75% of households in developing countries having access to a radio[1]. Of the over 185 million radio receivers across Africa, over 23 million radio receivers across Nigeria. Therefore, radio presents the strongest reach to a wide audience. And we target to air our digital action campaign on the radio frequency with the widest reach, the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) on Kapital FM 92.9 and other frequencies that link up to it.

The 'Make Girls Voices Count' Campaign would share girls stories over a radio series program. The radio series would air every week for 3 months and each episode would feature 3 segments:

• an audio playback of a girls' story. The girls stories would be recorded before the show and played back to kick-start the discussions of the day.


• a brief discussion of the subject matter of the girls' story where World Pulse sisters would join me as guest speakers in the studio to lead the discussion on the specific issue in the story of the episode.


• a call-in session to take questions and comments from listeners. This session would take the listeners reactions to the story shared and the discussion by the guest speakers.

Finally, the program ends with the call-to-action and share other relevant information to listeners.

The campaign would also feature a live tweet, #MakeGirlsVoicesCount, sharing strong quotes and highlights of the discussions and action steps. In addition to the radio series, the girls' stories would be adapted into comic-book-style animations that would make for an engaging story series shared across a number of social media platforms.

This digital action campaign seeks to spotlight girls' voices on various issues affecting them such asearly marriage, early childbirth, lack of education, child labour or abuse, gender-based violence and other issues affecting them. The campaign would share the girls voices with the public through a 3-month radio program and also online and via Social Media.

From childhood, the boy's voice is considered supreme and worthy of nurture and support, while the girl's voice is ignored and forced into silence.'

We want to teach girls to use their voices to influence their lives and their communities. And we want to inspire social change in people's perceptions and behavioural attitudes towards girls.

What is the main goal of this Digital Action Campaign (DAC)?

The goal of the #MakeGirlsVoicesCount digital action campaign is to promote gender equality in my community by amplifying the voices of girls.

The Digital Action Campaign, 'Make Girls Voices Count', would explore various digital media platforms, including radio and social media to amplify girls' voices by sharing girls' stories and to mobilize community action towards girls' empowerment.

Who is the audience for this Digital Action Campaign?

The audience for this digital action campaign comprises the general public who are targeted from the listenership profile of the radio station where the campaign would be aired, as well as millions of users of various social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. YouTube and other digital platforms and websites will be used for this campaign. Every week of the campaign, our stories would be shared on the World Pulse platform and your comments and any philanthropic commitments would be shared back with the girls. We are also working to stream the radio shows and the scheduled dates would be shared with the World Pulse Community.

Radio Listeners - The listenership of the radio station that would air our campaign automatically become our largest audience because they are the first contact with the girls' stories we would be sharing on each episode of the radio show.

Girls would also be mobilized to listen in on the show and this would be done by notifying various schools so that the program times are announced during the assembly in various schools in the community.

What actions should our audience take?

The specific ask of this digital action campaign would require our audience to:

Share girls' stories - Girls' stories abound around us and we need to share those stories so that they inspire other girls to speak out and also kick-start social change in the perceptions and behavioural attitudes of people towards girls and women in our communities.

Share the resources - Girls Voices Initiative offers a skills program for girls. Also, its networks include relevant development initiatives and partners that can provide advanced solutions for girls such as legal aid and other advanced support. The audience would be informed about how to connect these resources to the girls who desperately need them.

The campaign is inspiring people to champion girls' voices and equipping people with knowledge of resources that exist to benefit girls that need them. We encourage individuals to be aware and sensitive to girls' realities. And each individual listener can simply start where they are by taking 2 actions: share girls' stories with us and share our available resources with the girls who need them.

You can visit our website here

[1]http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celeb...