Day 1- Creating a Resilient and Inclusive Mumbai, 2018

Creating a Resilient and Inclusive Mumbai

Urban Thinkers Campus

21st June, 2018, Mumbai

Safecity, Developmatrix and The Urban Vision co-hosted a two day programme – Creating Resilient and Inclusive Cities on behalf of The Swedish Institute and The UN Habitat as part of the Urban Thinkers Campus at ISDI ACE, Mumbai. This programme was conducted in partnership with the U.S. Consulate General, Mumbai, Indian School of Design and Innovation (ISDI), Tata Capital and BMW Foundation.

Day 1 focused on stakeholder dialogue sessions with interactive innovation labs that generate action plans to address the barriers to gender equality and women empowerment and finding community driven solutions for the same. The event had sessions along 4 tracks- Mobility, Gender, Environment and Governance. You can check the Agenda for Day 1 here.

With the aim of bringing together diverse voices to share their opinions on the City We Need, we had 37 organisations working on different issues showcase their work, present their innovations and present the audience with problem statements of difficulties they were actually facing. We had 175 participants on Day 1.

The Campus was officially opened by Mrs. Madeleine Sandstedt-Kjellberger, Consul at the Swedish Consul General of Mumbai. She spoke about the importance of incorporating the SDGs, especially SDG 5- gender equality and its sub-goals in the policies of every organization.

Ms. Supreet K Singh addressed the participants about the need for speaking about gender related issues and speaking up against anybody who violates one’s rights.

This was followed by the launch of Urban Planning Primer- Reimagining the city from a Woman’s Perspective and a short-film sponsored by the Standford Centre on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s Collaboration Grant’s Initiative as part of the Omidyar Network Leadership Forum. The film was a heart wrenching rendition of the crime of sexual harassment in public spaces, on the Nirbhayas of today and the importance of voicing the issue. The aim of the primer is to highlight urban design, policy strategies and citizen actions that can make for a more inclusive and safe urban environment for women.

Lastly, Ms. Kashmira Mewawala, Head- Business Development & Chief Ethics Counsellor, Tata Capital, concluded the introductory session with a key note speech about problems associated with gender equality and her experiences with the same. She raised a very important question in the minds of everyone present there; “We all know gender equality, we all talk and post about it but how many of us actually implement it?”. She also spoke about the need to develop education, representation and safer spaces for women.

The day consisted of three panel discussions and 8 innovation labs, divided into two sessions consisting of 4 innovation labs each and concluded with a spoken word piece by Ms. Sapna Bhavnani on the way society perceives women, judges and condemns them for being different from what is conventional.

You can read more about the Panel discussions and Innovation Labs here.

You can have a look at the pictures from the event here 

and catch the highlights of the Urban Thinkers Campus here…

Our event has been listed on the World Urban Campaign website. You can have a look at it here.

Here is the story about our organisation and what we worked on at the Urban Thinkers Campus, Mumbai.