There are 24 million child brides in India. Despite that, India rejected the UN’s first-ever global resolution to fight child marriage. So, an NGO, Child Survival India wanted to activate the entire nation and end this indifference. But they couldn’t afford a mass media campaign.

Because every married Indian woman wears a red bindi (a red dot on the forehead). We decided to go to the masses and launch a peaceful movement against child marriage; by asking them to wear a white bindi (a white dot).

Over 4 months, we created a 6x4 feet art installation of a girl child with 39000 white bindis; because 39000 girls become child brides every day. Wherever it travelled, its made people aware of the magnitude of this social evil. It urged them to wear a white bindi and spread more awareness.

In just 45 days, the white bindi has reached out to 160 villages and caught on like wildfire everywhere. From malls, restaurants, college campuses, the fashion world and even Bollywood, it’s activating Indians and providing hope to millions of child brides. And most importantly, it’s changing and educating India, one place at a time.

Reaching out to the change-makers for support in itself was an eye-opener. It was shocking to see how little they knew about the severity of child marriage. Further digging revealed there was widespread lack of awareness about its impact on young girls, despite it affecting 39000 girls every day.

With this social evil being prevalent in rural silos, it was difficult for change-makers, who live in cities, to relate to the issue.

So, we set the following as our goals & success measures:

1. Create awareness at a national level.

2. Mobilize financial support to end child marriage.

It was abundantly clear by now that the puzzling apathy displayed by an otherwise empathetic bunch of Indian people sprung from the fact that they weren’t in it together!

The changer-makers and the victims existed into 2 different silos. Unless one went looking for the other, the issue remained dormant.

So, we took two key steps:

1. We took the popular cultural symbol of wedlock– a Red Bindi (a red dot on the forehead). And we made a white bindi (a white dot on the forehead) into a peaceful symbol to launch a movement against child marriage.

2. We introduced a travelling art installation that would shake people out of their comfort zones, make them aware of the magnitude of this social evil and give them a simple way to be part of the solution.

In just 45 days, the installation garnered 22 million impressions. It sparked conversations about child marriage and generated many articles in national and regional newspapers reaching 9.2 million people.

It has managed to, and catch the eyeballs of the opinion-makers of our society (like Bollywood actresses, political parties and other civil society foundations).

Most importantly, all the money and awareness we have raised so far, is helping Child Survival India to conduct awareness workshops for adolescent girls in 160 villages across India.

What’s more, all this response has been generated without any media spend. In fact the only money we spent was in buying 1, 00,000 white bindis, which is just 7000 rupees (83 euros)!

Now our plan is take the white bindi to every corner of India. So we can change and educate every village, every city, dot by dot.