Two years ago, a very unique campaign hit our screens. Titled #RaiseHer and featuring a host of television stars, the music video directed by Waseem Sabir, was released around Father’s Day 2015, and featured a father-daughter duo. The campaign aimed to spread awareness on the importance of raising daughters to be strong, confident and capable women.
We had a chat with Ms Ridhi Dogra, who started and featured in the campaign. “#RaiseHer was a campaign started by me and my director friend Waseem Sabir. We shot a music video with singer Suhail and got many television actors to raise awareness for it. The idea of doing it was to tell the world to raise a girl child into her unique and true self and to let her grow to be the ‘person’. She should not be restricted by her gender. My friend Waseem is no more- he passed away early this year due to a heart attack. I would love for this movement to keep going and raise as much awareness for the girl child- now more than ever. For Waseem sir.”
With International Women’s Day around the corner, this message of creating a gender sensitive and gender equal society needs to be disseminated with greater fervor. In India, where the birth of a girl child is often mourned rather than celebrated, it is important to drive home the point that women need to be born for the world to be a better place.
Having collaborated with Facebook and Twitter, we have been generating awareness regarding the use of social media for social change for some time now. Thus, it gives us great pleasure that celebrities are using their star status to good causes, and promoting such wonderful messages via social media.