Twitter & Ministry of Women and Child Development initiate #WebWonderWomen campaign

Consistent with its efforts to empower female voices and celebrate their achievements on the platform, Twitter India in partnership with the Indian Ministry of Women and Child Development and human rights organization Breakthrough announced a new campaign #WebWonderWomen (WWW).

The campaign was launched in the presence of Maneka Gandhi, Indian Union Cabinet Minister for Women & Child Development; Colin Crowell, Global Vice President of Public Policy at Twitter and Sohini Bhattacharya, President & CEO of Breakthrough.

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— Ministry of WCD (@MinistryWCD) January 8, 2019

Aiming to elevate women’s voices, celebrating impacts both big and small, and giving a platform for social change, #WebWonderWomen (WWW) invites people to nominate their favourite Indian woman achiever with her Twitter @handle anywhere in the world, under one of the following categories: Health/Fitness Community Media, Literature, Art, Sports, Tech/STEM, Travel, Business, Legal/Policy, Governmental, Entertainment, Fashion/Beauty, Finance, Food, Environment.

Commenting on the launch, Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi, Union Minister for Women and Child Development, said, "Indian women have always been enterprising and have created a positive impact on society with their hard-work, experience and knowledge. Women online, though niche, are a very powerful voice. #www (WebWonderWomen) is a campaign to recognise, honour and encourage such voices that have in their own capacity driven a positive impact on social media platforms. The Ministry is glad to partner with Breakthrough and Twitter India on this."

Colin Crowell, Global Vice President - Public Policy, Twitter said: "At Twitter, we see incredibly vibrant and diverse conversations on our platform every day. As part of our constant endeavours to celebrate achievers, empower them with our platform to be heard and encourage others through their stories on Twitter, we are delighted to launch #WebWonderWomen (WWW) in collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Child Development and Breakthrough today. This campaign is an effort to recognize and celebrate vibrant, dynamic and unique Indian women across the world. We’re focused on powering positive change by fostering healthy and informative conversations, sharing stories that inspire, and highlighting individuals who drive real impact through Twitter.”

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Sohini Bhattacharya, President and CEO, Breakthrough, said, "Having a voice is crucial and the ability to tell your story to a critical audience online is even more so. But if our voices are not heard then that impacts our right to self-determination, of participation, of life. This is why it's important to break the barrier and help women tell their stories the way they want to tell it. Breakthrough is proud to partner with Twitter and the Ministry of Women and Child Development to bring to you voices that you do not often hear."

The nominations are open now until January 31, 2019. The shortlisted handles will be open for public voting and in parallel will be evaluated by a jury panel consisting of women of influence from the public sphere, through which the finalists will be selected.

The finalists will be invited to present their work to Maneka Gandhi, Minister of Women and Child Development, wherein they would get a chance to narrate their journeys and how they have been using Twitter for Good. They will also get a chance to be a part of a specially curated workshop on social media skills by Breakthrough and will be profiled and featured in Q&As with Twitter India.

Criteria for nomination:

The campaign is looking for emerging, niche voices; passionate in their field and using Twitter to have a public conversation on their subject of expertise. As a part of this, the nominee will be required to produce evidence on Twitter, which shows their use of the platform has had a positive impact. This can be shown/shared in the form of engagement or conversation with their followers. The nominee should be active and make at least weekly updates on Twitter. Their communication and content should be positive, and there should be no shaming, no abuse, no toxicity on their handles. Further, the nominate should not have promoted any form of negativity.