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Tactic 4 case study: We the Women

To draw attention to laws banning women from driving cars in Saudi Arabia, Areej Khan, a Saudi artist and graphic designer living in the US, created the 'We the Women' campaign. The project asks women to respond to the question, “To drive or not drive?” by writing their answers on stickers that they can post in public spaces. Areej asked participants to photograph their stickers and post the photos to the project's Flickr photo group and on its Facebook page. "People preferred to post the stickers anonymously, by email to me, and then I posted them," Areej said. The project received news media attention in Saudi Arabia and in the US. "Most of the people participating on the Facebook page are against women driving," said Areej. "There's back and forth and debate on the group. I had to be prepared that I can't control what this is at the end. It's about finding a solution as community, not what I think or am attached to." Although the project gets many comments opposing women driving in Saudi Arabia, Arjeej finds that, "a lot of people say they think that will change soon, because of the voice given to women by projects like this."

Tools used: Facebook, Flickr, YouTube. Stickers can be downloaded from Flickr and printed. The website used HTML, JavaScript.

Reach: Over 2000 people participated on the Facebook page in the first three months of the project (April-June 2009), with 25 sticker designs submitted. Most of the sticker images were sent from Saudi Arabia.

Cost: USD$2000 (web hosting, sticker printing) Resources: One volunteer staffs the project. A local printer in Saudi Arabia made 3000 stickers for the project for free.

Time: Seven months to learn web design, plan and execute. After the launch, it took only two days for the first participant to post a photo.

Level of difficulty: 2 out of 5.

Links to learn more:

Image: http://www.n7nudrive.com/

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