In India, domestic violence complaints were at a 10-year high during COVID-19 lockdown. There was a 100% increase in the cases related to Domestic Violence. The lockdown led to a double whammy for the women, trapped at home and locked up with their abuser.

Our women had become helpless victims, with their cries for help muted in the lockdown. They could not step out to seek help. We had to find them a voice. The challenge was to draw attention and an involvement towards this issue, in an environment where the pandemic had taken centre stage.

Due to the pandemic there were countless fundraising campaigns. Within this clutter, we still had to raise funds with urgency, to help Sneha, a Mumbai based NGO for women welfare, to set up 6 more 24x7 call centres with trained counselors to address the increase in domestic violence. The clients budget was under $500.

The recent COVID-19 lockdown made the situation helpless and hopeless for women living in Mumbai's slums. Loss of income and alcohol withdrawal angst (with stores being shut) only added more fuel to the already present male toxicity and gender based oppression. The unfortunate victim was the woman in the house - trapped by the lockdown and locked up with domestic violence.

Sneha's counselling helplines were reporting a spike in domestic violence situations during the lockdown, but the NGO's staff could not reach the victims nor mobilise rescue or relief.

The pandemic was at centre stage, socially and politically and other critical issues were being ignored.

Within this chaos, it was important for Sneha to take it upon itself to give these muted voices of domestic violence a platform to be heard and to help them with counselling support. Their goal was to help the women survive the turmoil, till things got better or take up the fight through the authorities, if the situation so demanded.

We worked with Sneha to create a campaign:

#LockdownMeinLockup

which means: Locked up in the Lockdown

The hashtag aimed to reinforce the irony of the double impact of the lockdown on women. While most were locked down, these women in the slums of Mumbai, were locked up too, with their worst nightmare - domestic abuse.

To create awareness and urgency towards this issue we posted real stories of 9 women who had suffered domestic violence and urged influencers to post an image of themselves adopting one of these names* as a sign of solidarity and tag 3 friends to do the same, using the same #.

Soon, these muted voices became the voice of the nation as Indian woman icons across all walks of life and many more adopted one of these 9 names.

*names changed

As India went into a lockdown, millions of women in India’s slums got locked up with their abusers but their cries for help were muted. SNEHA, an NGO for women welfare saw a 100% increase in calls for help and they needed urgent funding to address the increase in domestic violence.

We had to reach out to the social media active, urban India demographic to help raise funds for women living in the slums of Mumbai.

The goal was to create awareness about the rise in domestic violence and urgency in raising funds for Sneha, so that they could service the increase in calls.

The insight, that 'I can be her voice' helped us create intimacy and urgency between urban netizens and women trapped in the slums.

We shared 9 real stories of domestic violence (names changed) and urged influencers to adopt one of these names and tag others.

We shortlisted the 9 most hard-hitting real life stories of women suffering domestic violence and posted them on the NGO's instagram page. We then approached influencers to post their photo, while adopting any one of those names. This is the post copy:

I am her voice today and the voices of the many victims of domestic abuse which are going unheard as they are locked up with their abusers in the lockdown. #LockDownMeinLockUp

Rising number of cases have put tremendous pressure on the resources of SNEHA, an NGO that has been fighting domestic violence since 20 years.

They need to raise funds to raise resources to tackle domestic violence.

You can choose to lend your voice by clicking on @snehamumbai_official, pick a name from the page, post your image with the name you've picked, and donate via the link in the bio.

I nominate @@@ to lend their voices.

Indian woman icons across all walks of life and many more adopted one of these 9 names helping us reach an incredible 70 million impressions, garnering over 1500 posts across social networks, with a spend of under $500.

The NGO’s Instagram followers went up by 12x in just 3 days

The NGO started receiving media requests for interviews. They also had a Live Instagram session with well-known digital influencer (@MissMalini) and the Medical Director of the NGO (Dr. Nayreen Daruwala) allowing us access to her online community.

The campaign received organic PR from more than 30 different websites which included leading organisations like Times of India, Business Standard, Yahoo News, Mid-Day, Femina and more.

What used to take the NGO months to crowd-fund, was achieved in 6 days, helping Sneha manage 2x the call load thereon.

This campaign, through Sneha's guidance, empowered women to stand up to to gender oppression.