Pixel Project News

The Pixel Project is five years old today.

Five years. That is half a decade precisely.

Half a decade of our all-volunteer team across 4 continents collaborating on our mission to raise awareness, funds and volunteer power is yet another building block in our ongoing commitment to the anti-VAW movement, our sister and brother anti-VAW activists and the women and girls who survive gender-based violence.

Half a decade of persistence in experimenting with (and implementing) positive, innovative and effective new ways of using online tools and social media to reach out to individuals and communities, while quietly establishing, building, and nurturing our ongoing campaigns and projects.

Half a decade of building partnerships with allies that range from anti-VAW organisations and campaigns of all shapes and sizes, to some of the biggest names in technology to music artistes using their songs to sound the clarion call for the end to VAW.

To celebrate our half-decade birthday, we are making 2 very special announcements:

Announcement 1:

Our fifth birthday also marks the fifth year in which we continue working on our flagship Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign. Throughout 2013, we finally made progress with completing the back-end technology that was needed for the Pixel Reveal system to work – triggering a pixel for every dollar donated.

We are now pleased to announce that our revamped Pixel Reveal website is now live, and that the Pixel Reveal campaign will finally be officially launched on the 101^st International Women’s Day on 8 March 2014. This is the year we begin raising that US$1 million that will be shared between our partner, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and The Pixel Project to keep our campaigns, programmes, and projects alive in service of women and girls!

Visit the website at http://reveal.thepixelproject.net. The pixel donation portal is open, so why not make an Early Bird donation of $10? You’ll even get an email with a link showing you exactly which pixels you have unveiled! U.S. donors will also received a tax-deductible receipt via email from our partner Razoo who is kindly providing the online donation processing service for this campaign.

Announcement 2:

We are proud to unveil our Testimonials page, where more than 30 people including VAW survivors, Pixel Project partners, Pixel Project volunteers, fellow activists and allies, have contributed some great thoughts and observations about the work that we have done in our quest to stop violence against women.

Visit our Testimonials page here, and if you want to be included in the page, email us at info@thepixelproject.net with your testimonial, how you would like to be credited, and a good clear headshot.

And now, onwards to our annual review of the year that came before:

2013 has been a fairly mixed year for building the capacity of The Pixel Project’s campaigns:

The majority of our campaigns continue to slowly but steadily build capacity and strength and momentum:

• The Twitter Tag Team now has over 16,000 followers – that is over 3000 more followers we had this time last year helping us retweet our daily global VAW helpline retweet session.
• Our Facebook page has now sailed past 13,000 fans with a very lively community respectfully discussing the various posts and news.
• The “30 For 30” Father’s Day campaign continues to successfully recruited good, non-violent men from all walks of life to stand up publicly to say NO to violence against women.
• The “Portraits For Pixels” campaign focused on our second annual “People and Pets say NO!” campaign, with photographers voluntarily organising free photo shoot sessions while many other people from around the world submitted pictures of them and their pets in solidarity with abused women who are unable to leave their abuser who threaten the safety of their pets.
• The “16 For 16” blogging campaign in honour of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence also continues to grow as we accumulate an archive of positive articles packed with shareable ideas, information, and solutions for inspiring individuals and communities to take action to stop VAW.

However, our “Paint It Purple” and “Music For Pixels” campaigns continue to experience teething pains in 2013 and are currently being revamped for 2014 with new campaigns, formats and approaches coming soon. If there is one thing we have learned over the past 5 years, it is that we have to roll with the challenges, circumstances and changes that crop up… and learn to make lemonade out of lemons instead of letting it sour us.

Indeed, aside from the steady progression of most of our campaigns, positive breakthroughs definitely outweighed the negative in 2013:

1. Our existing partnerships went from strength to strength including:

• Smartphone Safety App campaign in conjunction with our Tech partners. In 2013, it was the Holiday Season Smartphone Safety App campaign in partnership with PFO Technologies and iAMDEFENDER whereby for every downloaded and activated safety app powered by PFO’s award-winning GPS technology, a donor who wishes to remain anonymous will donate $US1 to The Pixel Project.
• Baking workshops to raise funds for our work together with the Academy of Pastry Arts Malaysia who is our longtime culinary industry partner.

2. New partnerships were formed with a number of major new allies including:

• Technology Partners: Microsoft, Razoo, PFO Technologies, Circle of 6, and IINCORE
• Music Partners: Music2Life and the Positive Music Association.

3.Our first ever mini-documentary

Our long-time interviewer and writer, Angelique Mulholland, worked with a filmmaker who wishes to remain anonymous to put together a mini-documentary featuring UK-based anti-Female Genital Mutilation campaigners, Integrate Bristol, talking about what the UK government is doing about eradicating FGM.

4. Major new campaigns piloted include:

• The “Ten Tweet-a-thons” campaign jointly run by us and our India partner, Bell Bajao /Breakthrough in support of their “Ring The Bell” campaign as well as to get productive conversations about VAW happening regularly on Twitter.
• The “Who Is Your Male Role Model?” YouTube public service announcement campaign which is currently almost halfway through its run between International Elimination of Violence Against Women Day and International Women’s Day and will be continuing as an annual campaign. Check out an example below contributed by our YouTube Music Ambassador, AHMIR:

The Year Ahead

So what does 2014 hold for The Pixel Project? Aside from the official launch of the Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign, here are of some of the highlights that you can look forward to in 2014:

• A brand new music video PSA from YouTube’s #1 R&B group, AHMIR to be launched in March in conjunction with a brand new anti-VAW music campaign counting down to the launch of the Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign.
• A series of special online events will be unveiled throughout 2014 in support of the Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign.
• Getting more men on board the cause to end VAW via our expanded roster of campaigns created for that purpose including our annual “30 For 30” Father’s Day blogging campaign, and the “Who Is Your Male Role Model?” YouTube Public Service Announcement campaign.
• More people and pets putting their best foot/paw forward for the cause via the third year of our “People and Pets say NO!” photo statement campaign.
• Continuing to provide access to the free safety app from our partner, PFO Technologies.

We hope you are as excited as we are about 2014. If you want to get involved with any of these campaigns, we certainly welcome more volunteers and pro bono professionals joining us on our journey towards ending violence against women. Just fill in the volunteer application form and we’ll get back to you!

If you prefer to donate, you can donate directly to us to help us with our campaign and project expenses. For more details about how your donation will be used, visit our donation page.

Here’s to The Pixel Project surviving and thriving to continue fighting for the cause for as many years as it takes to eradicate violence against women. May we live to see the day when our work is no longer needed – the day when violence against women is no longer the norm in communities and cultures worldwide.

It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.

– Regina Yau, Founder and President, The Pixel Project