MUMBAI: #HerCourageLessons, the latest campaign by Isobar India, the digital agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, for MySchoolReviews.com, a school listing and reviewing website, is making parents question the way they are raising their girls. Parents, with love and care, are also unknowingly teaching fear to their daughters through their statements and actions. “Avoid going to certain public spaces”. “Don’t wear certain types of clothes”. “It’s not nice to talk back”. These statements come rightly under a blanket of concern, but inadvertently, what they also do is instill fear in girls.
The campaign has been launched with a series of 3 films. Taking influence from popular children’s rhymes, each film throws light on a prevalent fear that parents unintentionally pass on to their daughters. In addition, MySchoolReviews.com has especially created an Amazon Alexa skill that would allow parents to check whether they are fear training or courage training their daughters.
Talking about the campaign, MySchoolReviews.com co-founder and managing partner Lalit Mehra said, “Being courageous is the need of the hour for every girl. As responsible custodians, it is our duty to teach every girl in India to be fearless, confident and strong. Through #HerCourageLessons, we want to prove that teaching courage to daughters from a young age is possible.”
Isobar India executive vice president Gopa Kumar said, “I believe it’s a fantastic initiative by MySchoolReviews.com to bring out the prevalence of unintentional fear training by parents at large. We may not notice it but it is prevalent and is deep-rooted in what we teach to our girls. We need to move out of this and start teaching courage to our daughters so that the next generation is fearless and is not conditioned in stereotypes. Through a series of brand videos, #HerCourageLessons intends to raise awareness about the same. Along with Alexa skills, other unconventional techniques are being explored to push this message across to parents.”
Isobar India national creative director Anish Varghese stated, “This International Women's Day, we do not want to discuss the lives of only a few girls. Rather we want to create an impact on an entire generation. And all of this starts with a simple question to parents who are raising their girls - What are you teaching them - fear or courage? Data says that more than 63 per.cent of parents unknowingly teach fear to their daughters through their statements and actions. To make them aware of this, we twisted the very first lessons that kids learn and remember when they get old – the nursery rhymes. The happy visuals in the films show that teaching is unintentional while what you hear will take you by surprise. #HerCourageLessons, powered by MySchoolReviews.com, urges parents to re-look at the lessons they are teaching their girls from a young age so as to raise the brave girls of tomorrow.”
