MANILA, Philippines — Evident Communications’ Director for Advocacy Communications Dove Subingsubing received the Certificate of Excellence in the Rising Star category of the 2019 Women Leading Change Awards, organized by CampaignAsia in Singapore last June 4.
Subingsubing was nominated for the high impact programs she headed at Evident in key issue areas like women empowerment and education, and her thought and civic leadership at an early stage in her career.
“This award is the sum of focus and passion, of being strategic and deliberate in the work we do for our non-profit and development partners. Advocacy is at the heart of Evident,” Subingsubing said. “We use communication to create tangible, long-term social impact, and we do this well.”
The Rising Star award is granted to outstanding young women under the age of 30, “who have shown early success in their field, and who will maximize their full potential to be the next generation of women leaders in the industry.”
Subingsubing thought and civic leadership in development and advocacy communications come from her involvement in the LGBT+ and women’s rights space. In 2016, Dove and her friends started the Facebook page Catcalled in the Philippines, a safe space for Filipinos to share their stories, and raise awareness on catcalling and other forms of sexual harassment.
Since May 2018, Subingsubing’s team has been working with Investing in Women (IW), an Australian government initiative to catalyse inclusive growth in Southeast Asia, and the Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) for the STEMpower Our Girls program. The campaign, which recently concluded its pilot phase in Metro Manila, Cebu and Cagayan de Oro, sought to encourage girls to take science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses to address the country’s lack of women in the field.
Another high impact campaign led by the Advocacy Communications unit under Subingsubing’s leadership was “Sa Ilalim ng Kalasag,” a short film for Jollibee Group Foundation documenting their efforts to help farmers. The foundation still uses the said film to urge more youth to venture into farmer entrepreneurship.
Doing good
Evident puts particular focus on advocacy projects, being one of the only agencies in the country with a dedicated business unit for the development sector. With Subingsubing at the helm of this unit, the agency conducts various pro bono work, offering free communication trainings, advisory and workshops to non-government organizations (NGOs).
In 2018, the International Association of Business Communicators awarded the Philippine Quill Award of Merit for Communication Management of Non-profit Campaigns to Evident’s “Dear Teacher” campaign, which helped NGO PBEd raise awareness on its Scholarships for Teaching Education Programs to Upgrade Teacher Quality (STEP UP) program.
“We are thrilled to see Dove receive this recognition from CampaignAsia. It is made even more meaningful by the fact that it is an award that honors women champions, and Dove has ably led many important initiatives advocating for women empowerment,” said Cecile Dominguez-Yujuico, Evident founder and CEO.
She concluded: “As an independent agency with a focus on social impact, we are proud of her achievement. We look forward to the many great things she will do, and the real impact that her advocacy work will have on the Philippines.”
