CARE and P&G Celebrate Fearless Women Leaders for International Women's Day

The campaign, "Women Know How," is kicking off with a video that's voiced by model and CARE Global Advocate, Iman. It celebrates all the ways women have achieved success despite the obstacles the world throws in front of them. A wide variety of women are featured: fearless leaders, entrepreneurs and changemakers.

"We wanted to disrupt that image of a 'successful businessman' or 'innovative entrepreneur' by highlighting women around the world taking care of business, at every age," said Monica Rowe, Chief Marketing Officer at CARE, a 75-year-old organization dedicated to empowering women and girls.

CARE's campaign was done in partnership with Procter & Gamble. It shares stories of women who are breaking the mold -- like Ra'edah Abu Alhalaweh, a Jordanian woman pioneering female plumbing, and Elisa Alvarado, a fast-food entrepreneur in Honduras. Other elements of the campaign include a live event on Capitol Hill (featuring women leaders, celebrities and influencers), a virtual speaker series and advertising across women-owned sites.

"It was important that every piece of the campaign supported and celebrated women," said Rowe. "That's why we chose to focus advertising for the campaign across women-owned sites."

On social media, the brand tapped celebrities like actress and director Danielle Savre to share a time when it "clicked" for them that women know how to get things done. For Savre, that came when Kathryn Bigelow won an Academy Award for directing The Hurt Locker. "I had never seen a woman win an Oscar for directing before, and it was an inspiration. It gave me hope that I could do that, too," Savre stated in an Instagram post.

Also timed to coincide with Women's History Month is the release of a new report from CARE, "Her Voice: Listening to Women in Action." It illuminates how events like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and the war in Ukraine pose unprecedented challenges and are widening inequalities everywhere.

Women and girls, refugees and internally displaced people are among those most impacted. According to the report, women are also largely missing in positions of power, decision-making and policies. That limits humanitarian responses and recovery measures from adequately reflecting and addressing women's voices.

Women report food insecurity as one of the biggest impacts in their lives with 64% of them focused on addressing it in their household. "It is no longer very scary whether a rocket will arrive or not from the sea. But it is scary that we will die of starvation," said one of the women interviewed in an occupied area of Ukraine.

Women are also almost twice as likely to report mental health challenges as they were three years ago. And 53% report gaps in their livelihoods, with lack of employment opportunities, increasing prices of goods and services, and difficulty accessing markets and financial resources as the main challenges affecting their household income.

But it's not all dire. One area of CARE's programming empowers women to participate in Village Saving and Loans Associations (VSLAs), stimulating the creation of saving groups within communities. Women in VSLAs are substantially less likely to prioritize impacts in livelihoods, food security, health services and mental health than their non-VSLA counterparts.

To better understand the insights women shared in the report, CARE created a choose your own adventure-type game that showcases what it's like to navigate some of the challenges of simply being a woman trying to get things done.

The message is eminently clear. "Now more than ever -- as the world is suffering from the impacts of COVID, climate change and crisis -- women are working harder than ever to protect their families, rebuild their communities and forge a better world for tomorrow," Rowe said.

This story was written by Brandie Feuer, who counts CARE among her clients.

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