Through the Nielsen Cares global volunteering program, our associates mobilize Nielsen’s data, expertise and their own skills to positively affect the communities where they live and work around the world. Recently a Canadian associate, Gabriel Moreau, client manager, worked with members of Nielsen’s Advertising Effectiveness team to take on the task of leveraging Nielsen consumer research capabilities through skills-based volunteering to assist e2– Equality Effect with understanding the impact of its 160 Girls campaign in Kenya.
e2 is a Canadian-based charitable organization that uses human rights law to improve the lives of women and girls in Africa and around the world. The organization initiates innovative legal and constitutional challenges while also supporting grassroots education, law reform, test case litigation and outreach.
In 2013, a Kenyan High Court Decision made legal history for girls’ rights internationally by setting new standards to protect girls from rape. The goal of the “160 Girls” Public Legal Education Program is to train community members about the significance of the “160 Girls” court decision and provide the necessary legal knowledge to allow community members to hold police accountable for effectively investigating defilement claims. It also aims to increase perpetrator accountability for violence against girls.
“Measuring the impact of human rights law has proved elusive for human rights practitioners over the years; evaluating the concrete value of an abstract legal concept like human rights has been an ongoing challenge,” said Fiona Sampson, CEO of the Equality Effect. “Working with Nielsen, and having the benefit of Gabriel Moreau’s leadership, e² has been able to fill a critical gap in the practice of social justice law by developing measurement tools and analyses that allow us to understand the impact the 160 Girls project is having on the ground, addressing the climate of impunity for rape. The inclusive and creative approach provided by Gabriel and the Nielsen team to measuring and evaluating the impact of 160 Girls has been invaluable—we are hugely grateful for this support.”
For Gabriel, working on this project was an opportunity to leverage his skills and expertise in a new context and create social value in another part of the world while making use of the Dedicated Volunteer TIme Nielsen associates have available to them. Gabriel used our unique survey capabilities to provide actionable insights around e2/160 Girls’ recent marketing campaign and delivered an in-depth analysis that measured the reach and resonance of this campaign to all Kenyans.
“Nielsen is in a unique position in its ability to support not-for-profits globally with our time and expertise,” said Gabriel. “Leading the e2/160 Girls project, not only was I able to offer my personal time to support an amazing organization, I was able to provide them with valuable insights on the overall impact of their campaign. This work played a key role in the recent selection of The Equality Effect as a best practice in the elimination of discrimination against women by the UN Human Rights Council.”
Our business is only as healthy as our communities—whether in our own backyard or around the world. Through the time and dedication of associates like Gabriel, our associates are able to work on projects through Nielsen Cares that leverage the breadth and depth of Nielsen’s data and consumer insights expertise to help address some of the biggest social challenges in the markets where we live and work.
Photo credit: e2 and 160 Girls Project.
