The campaign focused on use of condoms within marriage. Where the discourse was around feminisation of HIV infection and women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. The campaign addressed the male audience, directly asking men to use condoms and act responsibly to protect their partners/spouses from sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. It also tried to educate women on the need to negotiate condom use as a means to protect themselves.

Breakthrough developed a multi-media campaign, ‘Ye Kaisa Insaaf Hai?’ to bring public attention towards growing incidences of stigma and discrimination faced by women living with HIV/AIDS, most of who have been infected by their husbands or male partners. The women are either shunned by the family and community or are forced to live on the periphery of society after the death of their husbands. The increase of HIV/AIDS amongst women is another manifestation of women’s unequal status in society. The consequences of contracting HIV/AIDS is severe – women face homelessness, increased violence, loss of jobs and families and lack of access to treatment and care. This sensitive yet potent campaign was developed pro bono by Piyush Pandey (Executive Chairman Ogilvy & Mather). It included TV and radio spots, and print ads in four languages: Hindi, Kannada, Marathi and English.

Our ‘Bell Bajao!’ campaign launched in India in 2008, was a cultural and media campaign that calls on men and boys to take a stand against domestic violence. The campaign seeks to reduce domestic violence against women and to highlight the role that men and boys can play in reducing violence. Bell Bajao’s award-winning series of PSAs has been viewed by over 130 million people. The announcements, inspired by true stories, showed men and boys stepping up and ringing the bell to interrupt overheard domestic violence. In 2010, Breakthrough’s video vans traveled 14,000 miles through cities and villages screening these PSAs and involving communities through games, street theater and other cultural tools resulting in a sustainable, on-ground process of transforming hearts and minds.

In 2011, Breakthrough launched its campaign on Early Marriage. Subsequently, in 2013, the first United Nations Human Rights Council resolution against child, early, and forced marriages was adopted; it recognizes child marriage as a human rights violation and pledges to eliminate the practice as part of the U.N.’s post-2015 global development agenda. In 2013, this campaign was rechristened ‘Nation Against Early Marriage’.

In response to the 2012 census, which saw the sex ratio of India fall from 927 to 919 girls per 1000 boys, Breakthrough launches the #MissionHazaar campaign, which is subsequently adopted by the Government of India in 2015 for its Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign.

In 2012, the violent gangrape of ‘Nirbhaya’ shocked the nation. In an era of outrage and calls of change, Breakthrough launched the #AskingForIt and #ShareYourStory campaigns. The #AskingForIt campaign raged against victim blaming whereas the #ShareYourStory campaign encouraged women to share stories of harassment with their sons, so as to generate empathy in them.

Acknowledging the rampant sexual harassment at the workplace and the lack of redressal mechanisms for the same, Breakthrough launched a pilot programme of intervention among women garment factory workers in Bangalore, Karnataka. After this, we launched the Streelink programme in Delhi NCR with garment factory workers in 2016.

Breakthrough was awarded the Rani Lakshmibai Award for Best Institution for Research & Development in the field of Women Empowerment by then President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Our programme to prevent sexual harassment was a national programme that caught everyone’s attention after the insights from our survey “Harassment in Public spaces and the domestic sphere” were published in a popular daily newspaper. As part of this programme, we launched campaigns like “Asking for it”, “Share your Story with your Son” and “Make it Safer” that continued to engage audiences on the issue of sexual harassment.

One of our effective initiatives Taaron Ki Toli, a school-based curriculum was designed to promote systematised awareness about gender-based discrimination and its forms amongst adolescents. The programme was rolled out in 150 government schools of Haryana and aimed to create a positive shift in the behavior and attitude of the students by reinforcing and enabling them to question prevailing gender norms in their families/communities.
After a successful run of 3 years, our program got evaluated by the global research centre Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and we saw that both the gender attitude index and the gender behavior index have shifted significantly for students who are recipients of our programme.

Mann ke Manjeere was an album, music video, and ultimately an entire campaign that promoted women’s claiming of public spaces. Mann ke Manjeere: An Album of Women’s Dreams launched Breakthrough as a human rights organisation. It tells the true story of Shameem Pathan, who courageously broke out of her abusive marriage and became a truck driver to support herself and her child away from her violent husband. It won the 2001 National Screen Award in India for best music video and nominated for MTV’s ‘Best Indipop Music Video’. The full campaign, focused on promoting women’s rights and bringing attention to domestic violence, was based on the music video and album. It reached 26 million households via six satellite music television channels, effectively mainstreaming discussions about domestic violence issues throughout South Asia and reaching as far as Tajikistan, Indonesia and the United States.