TIE Case Study Claire Jackson, from JWT, worked with Plan Interna=onal at a UN summit to advance girls’ rights in the developing world. February 2012
Background Plan is one of the largest children’s development organisa=ons in the world and ‘Because I am a Girl’ is Plan's campaign to fight gender inequality, promote girls' rights and liP millions of girls out of poverty. Across the world, girls face double discrimina=on due to their gender and age, leaving them at the boRom of the social ladder. Girls are less likely to go to school, have access to medical care and food. They experience more violence and sexual harassment and are forced to work hard on domes=c chores, limi=ng their opportuni=es to develop. Every year Plan sends a delega=on to a United Na=ons Summit on Women and Girls’ Rights in New York (The Commission for the Status of Women). This is an opportunity for Plan to raise awareness of its work and lobby for interna=onal policy change. In recent years, Plan have created a unique plaXorm for young girls to speak for themselves at the UN by invi=ng young girls from programme countries to travel to New York and take part in the Summit. This is a rare opportunity for these girls to make their voices heard on the issues that maRer to them most….
The Challenge Based on experience from previous Summits, Plan iden=fied the need for a more concerted communica=ons strategy and addi=onal communica=ons resource for the future 2012 UN Summit. They would need to maximize their presence and provide beRer support to the girl delegates in raising awareness of the core girls’ rights issues. My TIE placement with Plan Interna=onal began in December 2011, working with their team in London, to put a strategy and ac=on plan together for the Summit in February 2012. This centred on the following TWO key tasks: •
Provide communica5ons and social media training for Plan’s amazing girl delegates; Age 15-‐17yrs, these nine girls had travelled to New York from their homes in rural parts of Sierra Leone, Malawi, Cameroon, Pakistan and Cambodia. From dusty villages to down-‐town New York, each had powerful stories to tell but would need communica=ons training to help package and disseminate these for all to see.
•
Sow the seeds of awareness for the ‘Because I am a Girl campaign’ Officially launching in October 2012, we needed to use our presence at the UN to start engaging the UN community and Plan’s followers with the campaign’s core goals.
The experience The UN Summit finally arrived. Touching down in NYC, we pitched camp at the UN Millennium Hotel and spent the next 10 days working around the clock with the nine girl delegates to prepare their speeches for UN events, tweet their ac=vity, craP stories and upload these to our campaign blog; hRp://bcimagirl.tumblr.com/ Once the girls were asleep, we draPed press releases, pitched media stories and worked with journalists, such as Marianne Pearl, to get the girls’ stories out to the world; hRp://www.plan-‐uk.org/news/blogs/guest-‐bloggers/mariane-‐pearl-‐un/ There was sweat, there were tears, there were highs and there were lows but if I could share anything from our 10 days in New York, it would be the following……
The memories... Fatmata, 17 years old from Sierra Leone, speaking at a UN Women panel on the issue of Early and Forced marriage; “I stand on behalf of the rural girls in
my country in Sierra Leone to say we have right to decision making as to who to get married to…”
Fatmata, silenced the audience with her story of a 13 year old friend who was forced into marriage with a 47 year old man. She fell pregnant, contracted fistula, lost the child in birth and was then divorced by her husband. Last Fatmata heard, her friend was s=ll in hospital and her life was uncertain.
The memories… The look of pure pride on Elizabeth’s face, age 15 from Malawi, as she presented her own story, in her own words, typed by herself on a borrowed laptop. Two hours before she had never used a computer before. Read Elizabeth’s own story for yourselves on our blog: hRp://bcimagirl.tumblr.com/
The memories… Maryam, age 15 years, from rural Pakistan, who saw snow for the first =me in her life fall on Time Square, NYC.
And the rest…..
Working together
Campaigning  together Â
And making las=ng friends….
The learnings (at least a few from the hundreds)….
• • • •
Strategies or ideas are worthless unless you can actually implement them. The simplest of things can make a difference People, when moved, can move mountains Don’t underes=mate how fast a 15 year old from rural Malawi, who has never seen a computer, can learn to use one (2 hours)!!!!
To find out more…
Please feel free to contact me any=me. Would love to chat more about my TIE experience, Plan’s work or about development in general…
Claire.jackson@jwt.com
And if you’d like to support the Because I am a Girl campaign, find out more here: hRp://www.plan-‐uk.org/what-‐we-‐do/campaigns/because-‐i-‐am-‐a-‐girl/
Thank you so much to Philippa (TIE), Jon and Jeremy (WPP), Waris and Emily (Plan) and Fatmata, Teresa, Elizabeth, Loyce, Alishba, Maryam, Fabiola, Keang and Len for making this happen.