Oxfam in action

What we do: Campaign for change; Emergency response; Development work; Why we do it

Issues we work on: Climate change; Conflict and natural disasters; Health; Education; Debt and aid; Gender equality; The right to be heard; World Food Crisis; Trade; Private sector

Where we work: Countries we work in

The impact of our work: In words and pictures; On video

Special features: History of Oxfam; Oxfam myths exposed; Take the Oxfam Quiz; Reshaping our world

Making Change Happen

Securing basic human rights for women is essential in the fight against poverty. Beauty Ara is a ‘Change Maker’, taking the message of the South Asian WECAN Campaign To End Violence Against Women to her local community, person by person, street by street.

About the WECAN campaign

In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Afghanistan, Oxfam is supporting the We Can campaign to end violence against women. This South Asian campaign aims, by 2011, to recruit five million volunteer Change Makers – like Beauty (there are already over 350,000) – to help mobilise 50 million people and bring about a sea change in attitudes towards women, and creating a more fair and equal society in which women's voices are heard.

In many countries, social customs and attitudes tacitly condone and support violence against women, and are entrenched in families and communities. These attitudes are based on a deep-seated social belief that women are fundamentally of less value than men. Only when this perception changes will violence against women be viewed as a shocking, unacceptable violation rather than an invisible norm.