Survivors of Gender Violence: #FreeToBe

Music & culture

Jan 20

Who: Oslo Woman’s Rights Initiative

What: Campaign against gender violence

Where: Social Media

Project period: 2020-2021

Web: #FreeToBe

The #FreeToBe campaign is sponsored by the Grieg Foundation and Fritt Ord. It is a narrative-focused campaign aimed at flipping the script on how we collectively think, communicate and activate around human rights, especially gender violence. It is more effective to fixate on the world we want than the world we don’t.

The mission is to create a world where everyone is free to be safe and whole - including our most vulnerable. That is the foundation to building a democratic world where everyone can realize their potential. It is time to put survivors first, so they are in the driver’s seat of shaping their own narratives. Time to create a new language that humanizes survivors and recognizes that they are much more than their stories of trauma. Time to stop the romanticization of resilience and start seeing survivors as leaders with diverse lived experiences who can play an important role in shaping policy.

The campaign launched in autumn 2020 and has already made a significant impact in shaping and influencing the approach of activists, NGOs, and policymakers when it comes to how they think and communicate about gender violence.