She Creates Change was creatively spearheaded by Emmy-winner Martha Adams for Room to Read. The episodes were directed by a collective of diverse women curated by Nexus. The brief was to take real life stories of young girls in disadvantaged areas and turn them into animated short films which celebrate the courageousness of the girls, and inspire the next generation.

With a script centred on the internal struggles and machinations of a teenage girl, the film "Keya" heavily relied on careful acting by our animation team. Director Bonnie Forsyth wanted to create an emotional story that used visual metaphor to describe a difficult subject in a way that allowed Keya's courage to shine through. Painterly textures, beautiful design and frame by frame 2D animation create a moving story of one girl's intelligence overcoming adversity.

“Don’t apologize for your ambition. And always be an advocate for yourself. No one believes in you, no one’s going to root for you. No one’s going to advocate for you better than yourself. So don’t apologize for both wanting more, and asking for more,” says Charithra Chandran (Keya).

The second film we worked on was called "Naifat," co-directed by Claudia Chinyere Akole and Bonnie Forsyth. Naifat’s film had the goal of mimicking the appearance of Claudia's layered POSCA marker works, specifically those drawn on multiple layers of wet media acetate. A combination of digital and traditional work was used to achieve this. By using POSCA paint markers, we achieved a unique look using big sections of bold saturated colour, simplified shapes, and clear silhouettes.

When designing a piece of work that will be used in the classrooms of other countries, great attention also had to be paid to any cultural sensitivities in the script. Since Naifat had styled her hijab tucked behind her ears at home in the reference photos we were provided, earlier designs had Naifat’s ears visible. We learned this could potentially reflect poorly to her local Muslim community, so we amended her hijab in the film to always cover her ears.

Each episode for She Creates Change is comprised of an animated short with accompanying live action mini documentaries that feature the narratives of six courageous young women from historically low-income communities in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Vietnam, and feature voice over from world-class talent such as Freida Pinto and Charithra Chandran. The episodes premiered on International Woman's Day, broadcast on the Discovery ASIA channel to a huge audience.