The creative idea was to use the ages long tools related to protest so that the audience feels the relevance. We developed a rhythmic campaign beat which is a traditional cultural practice, often witnessed in political or social protest rallies. And as visual campaign mnemonic, we used a ‘Dhol’ (local drum), the instrument traditionally beat to sound warnings, celebrations, protests, news and more, as the symbol of the beat raised against child marriage. We called upon people to raise the beat to end child marriage.

Starting from 31st July 2017, this campaign is being implemented with 5 PSA and a 26-episode Enter-Educate drama for TV, radio and digital platforms, along with 45 minutes drama for local screening, billboards, and posters; all calling out – “Raise the Beat to End Child Marriage”.

10 TV channels donated 2,430 minutes of airtime. National and 19 community radios broadcasted PSAs for free. Big news outlets shared the PSAs on their social media channels, the local and foreign press covered them as news. PSAs won 3 Accolade Awards and 1 APAC- Effies in 2018

30.2 million reach, 26 million engagement and 17.7 million views in UNICEF facebook page. UNICEF-BCO Facebook page won the third position among all global UNICEF pages.

Other countries are showing interest to replicate the campaign. Bangladesh started phase 2 of the campaign.

Results from the recent baseline showed fathers (57% urban, rural ) and mothers (56% urban, 51% rural) disagreed with the statement that their family approves child marriage. In addition, 49% urban and 52% rural adolescent boys disagreed with their family’s approval of child marriage. Moreover, 58% of urban and 51% of rural adolescent girls strongly disagreed with the same statement.