UN Women’s HeForShe campaign successful at Tokyo International Photo Awards

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One of the photos of UN Women Georgia’s global campaign HeForShe won four prizes across three categories at the Tokyo International Photo Awards.

Nina Tibilashvili, a Georgian wheelchair fencer and a world champion in sabre fencing, and Luka Ghaghanidze, the bronze medal winner of the U23 European Championships
Nina Tibilashvili, a Georgian wheelchair fencer and a world champion in sabre fencing, and Luka Ghaghanidze, the bronze medal winner of the U23 European Championships in foil fencing; Photo: UN Women/Andrey Kovalev

The photo featuring Nina Tibilashvili, a Georgian wheelchair fencer and a world champion in sabre fencing, and Luka Ghaghanidze, the bronze medal winner of the U23 European Championships in foil fencing, won a gold prize in the category of sports activities. The photo was also awarded second place in the category of events, as well as silver and honorary prizes in the category of portraits.

The winning photo came out in the summer of 2017, under the aegis of UN Women Georgia’s global campaign HeForShe, which is dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment through sport. One theme of the social campaign and this photo arose from the fact that there is no grammatical gender in the Georgian language. Thus the key message focused on equality: “Georgian language has no gender prejudice, so why is it in your head?”

Women and men representing different types of sports participated in videos and posters prepared within the framework of the campaign. They united around the idea of equality to show that both women and men have equal opportunities in sport as well, stressing that gender does not affect one’s ability to achieve success or fight for victory.

Andrey Kovalev, a photographer who participated in the campaign, remarks: “To me, as an artist, there are several aspects that can inspire a project. Among them, the most important one is the goal it serves. This campaign enabled me to work on issues of the utmost importance.”

UN Women carried out the campaign in cooperation with the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs and in partnership with the advertising agency McCann Tbilisi.