Terre des Hommes is one of the most active NGOs for gender equality, yet it does not have the visibility and the media budget like other associations. For this reason, we needed to create a zero-budget media campaign able to create a piece of news everyone would talk about. Therefore, we chose to enter a globally controversial debate: the one of statues. In Italy, the discussion was particularly heated around one statue dedicated to a journalist accused of rape, becoming a gender equality issue. Terre des Hommes took this opportunity to highlight an unacceptable gap when it comes to monuments in Milan: out of 121 statues, not even one is dedicated to a woman. This led to the launch of a petition to ask the municipality to build more female statues of women as successful models for new generations.

The DiscovHERy billboards is the first child-height billboard campaign that aims to inspire a change in perspective. These mini billboards were especially made to house small statues of women and designed to be positioned in specific points in Milan’s main squares of Milan to visually replace the actual male statues thanks to a shift in perspective. A QR code allowed people to discover the stories of dozens of women deserving a monument and sign a petition to ask the municipality to build more female monuments. A new point of view for the city on the issue of gender equality.

Italy has the lowest score in the EU Gender Equality Index in the domain of work.

By age 12, 50% of girls’ career aspirations are influenced by stereotypes, rooted in a tradition that marginalized women for centuries. Inspired by these data, we realized that one of the most significant gender gaps is in the models we choose to celebrate: in Milan, the number of statues celebrating great women is 0. That’s why we offered to the city's children a new perspective on the past, proposing them successful female role models to look up to. For adults, the invitation was to think about this issue and to sign a petition to be addressed to the municipality of Milan to build more statues of women in the city.

The billboards were placed in Milan’s main squares in front of their most iconic male monuments on 8th March, the World Women's Day. To create them, we analyzed the structure of the squares and designed mini billboards especially made to house small statues of women, chosen for their commitment as a symbol of guidance for new generations. They were 3D printed, built, and positioned with a special angle to visually replace the actual male statues thanks to a shift in perspective. A new point of view, literally: in a cultural sense but also visually, designed and built to be photographed and then shared on social media and obtain the maximum impact also online thanks to a strong and clear key visual.

The petition resulted in more than 4,000 citizens becoming new activists for Terre des Hommes – the best results in their history, but the real cultural change took place online: with zero media budget we achieved 48M reach thanks to the support of institutional representatives, celebrities, influencers, and journalists. Also, thanks to all this, after a few months something historic happened in Milan: the first statue of a woman was finally unveiled by the mayor.