drstephendann has pointed me to this year’s CARE Australia campaign, I Am Powerful. The campaign focuses on the potential of women in developing countries to make positive change in their world, given opportunity and choice.

CARE Australia is an organisation providing international emergency relief and development assistance, without religious or political affiliation. They were also involved in the campaign to abolish AUSAid restrictions on international aid for family planning services.

The I Am Powerful campaign has four arms:

Help Her Live: family planning and midwifery care

Help Her Learn: schooling and training courses

Help Her Earn: supporting sustainable woman-owned business

Help Her Lead: encouraging woman-led community organising and resource centres

From the fact sheet:

From years of experience CARE has learnt that investing in women and girls is one of the most effective ways to help communities overcome poverty. We know that when equipped with the proper resources, women and girls have the power to lift families and entire communities out of poverty.

Poverty, at its roots, is a lack of power. It is a girl in Timor-Leste who is denied the chance to go to school; a young woman in Vietnam who has no control over whether or when she becomes pregnant; a woman in Yemen who doesn’t have the right to own land; a mother in Kenya who is denied the chance to play a significant role in society.

Check out their TV spot:

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4353343&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

(More videos at CARE’s Vimeo account)

Description: The video is a montage of women and girls, mostly women and girls of colour, in their communities all over the world. The women are mostly pictured in a community context, working, learning, or looking straight at the camera, on a level. The captions read:

I am
A woman
Poor but proud

I am
ready for change
in my community

I am
a mother
daughter
sister
leader

I am
powerful

She has the POWER to change her world
You have the POWER to help her do it.

Care [Care logo]
1800 DONATE
http://www.careaustralia.org.au

~~~

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Categories: gender & feminism, social justice

Tags: activism/charity, australia, social change