Safecity Monthly Newsletter : December 2017

Safecity is growing exponentially and we’re constantly working hard to translate our vision to reality. Because we don’t want you to miss out on our work, we’ve decided to put together a monthly column to tell you about what we’ve been up to. You can sign up for our newsletter here.

Closing Note for the Year from our Founder

This year has been an incredible year for Safecity.

We launched our Mobile app thanks to our amazing donor Antonio Gracias. It is available on Android and iOS in English, Hindi and Spanish and has received reports from as far as the Philipines, Khirzistan and Mexico.

Our CSR projects ranged from awareness workshops on child sexual abuse for over 2000 children and their parents/teachers in Mumbai to starting a new community intervention in Behrampura, Ahmedabad supported by our great partners at HPCL and Godrej Consumer Products Limited respectively. We attended the UN Women’s Technical committee on Safe cities and safe public spaces and shared our work at the Commission for the Status of Women, at the UNAOC’s panel in Baku and during the UNGA in New York.

We engaged with over 150 volunteers and interns and facilitated workshops for over 2000 youth on college campuses in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Patna. Our Legal RoundTables with SheThePeople covered topics ranging from sexual harassment in public spaces to campus safety to workplace safety and almost 1000 students and faculty left better informed about the legislation around sexual violence and their human rights.

We registered Red Dot Foundation Global in the US and it has received its 501c3 tax-exempt status. We were also accepted as a full voting member of the CIVICUS community of civil society actors and have continued to retain our Guidestar rating. We were accredited by the UN as part of the Global Compact on Migration.

In short, we had a year that was deeply satisfying, exciting in terms of new developments and constant innovation. I would like to thank all our donors, partners, collaborators, volunteers, interns, team members and family for their love, support and constant motivation. I wish you and yours a very Happy and Fulfilling New Year 2018.

Much love

Elsa

Peace Direct Award

Red Dot Foundation (Safecity) is one of 3 winners of the 2017 Women-led Tomorrow’s Peacebuilder Awards by #PeaceDirect! We are happy and grateful for all the efforts and contributions towards our cause.

Tomorrow's Peacebuilders Awards 2017: the winners

Today on #HumanRightsDay we’re proud to announce the winners of 2017 #TomorrowsPeacebuilders Awards: three inspiring organisations building a better tomorrow through locally-led action.

Posted by Peace Direct on Sunday, December 10, 2017

Tax Exempt Status

Red Dot Foundation Global has received tax exempt status and is now a 501(c)3 organisation! We are looking forward to doing more exciting work and approaching new cities to map harassment and make them safer.

CIVICUS Membership

We are proud to announce that Safecity has been accepted as a full voting member into the civil society alliance CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation !

Vital Voices VV100 Strategic Retreat

Safecity was at the recent VV100 Strategic Retreat by Vital Voices and sponsored by Johnson and Johnson in Cape Town, South Africa. Our partners, Jane Anyango, founder of Polycom Development Project, Kenya and Nicole Joseph-Chin, founder of Ms. Brafit, Trinidad & Tobago were also present along with ElsaMarie DSilva. They brainstormed ways to sustainably grow Safecity in India and across the world and build a truly world-class organization that is respectful of human rights. Valuable feedback was given by the various team members from Johnson and Johnson and Vital Voices. We are excited to incorporate all this and more in our 2018 programming.

Design Thinking Workshop with Thinkizm and US Consulate General, Mumbai

The U.S.Consulate, Mumbai in collaboration with Thinkizm and Safecity hosted a one day Design Thinking/ Problem Solving Workshop on Thursday, December 14, 2017 for NGO’s in Mumbai to gain insights by developing innovative solutions to address the issue of gender based violence.

We The Women

On 10 Dec 2017, Safecity hosted a stall at We The Women curated by Barkha Dutt. We hosted a live mapping activity to represent what our web and mobile app do in the online space and also demonstrated the reporting process on our mobile app to all those who patronised the stall. Our interns shared their experience being at the event and representing Safecity here- https://safecity.in/safecity-at-we-the-women/

16 Days of activism wrap up

During the 16 days of activism this year, we highlighted the work that the various teams and partners of Safecity have been doing to bring about awareness about sexual harassment, to engage communities and empower women and girls in speaking up against violence.

26th Nov- Safecity Trinidad and Tobago led by Nicole Joseph, Founder of Ms. Brafit. The work has been around empowering women and girls with their first layer of clothing and building conversations around self-esteem, self-care and the correlation of their safety keeping in mind the fact that the female body characteristics essentially lead to being targets for violence and abuse.

28th Nov-Safecity Nigeria led by Aderonke Kimemenihia-Eseka who works on engaging youngsters

30th Nov- Safecity Malaysia led by Radziah Radzi, Founder of Sisterhood Alliance, working on engaging and empowering girls

1st Dec-Workshops– Ashwini Syed, Tania Fernandes and Naina Jha shared their experiences conducting workshops

2nd Dec- Safecity Kenya led by Jane Anyango from Polycom Development Project who work on initiating change.

3rd Dec- Broken Silences- Safecity began as a platform for people to share their stories of sexual harassment in public spaces. We shared some of those #BrokenSilences that were shared as reports on our web app

4th Dec- Safecity Nepal led by Samjhana Phuyal, the Founder of Social Empowerment by Empowering Women SEEW, who works on creating awareness about sexual harassment and the law in Nepal.

5th Dec- Legal Team Updates- Vandita Morarka and team members shared their experience working on safety audits, legal resources, the newswrap, legal roundtables and more.

6th Dec- Safecity Cameroon led by Nwengtah Berlyne working on Gender Advocacy and Outreach with different communities of people.

7th Dec- Data Team Updates- Vihang Jumle and team members shared their experience forming patterns from data, deciphering it and putting their analytical knowledge to social good.

8th Dec- Safecity South Africa led by Olwethu Leshabane, the Founder of The Red Wings Project. They are working on shifting the narrative from victim blaming to perpetrator accountability.

Results from the Safety Walk conducted last year in partnership with Womenability

Safecity was a part of Womenability‘s world-wide research on how safe public spaces are for women. We conducted a safety sprawl last year in the street of Khar, Mumbai and the report is finally out! Check out their findings here.

Gender Equality Watch

Can women make their own choices? Do transgenders get equal rights to jobs? Check out the latest updates in the law with regard to women and genders put together by Sanaya Patel. You can read it here.

Women Rights = Human Rights

10th December is celebrated as International Human Rights Day. However, we realised that we have a long way to go until women are treated equally as humans and not as the inferior sex. In an attempt to highlight that women’s rights ARE human rights, SheThePeople and Safecity collaborated in putting together a series of blogs talking about women’s rights or the lack of them from various aspects. You can read them here.

Updates from Patna, Bihar

Naina Jha conducted a workshop creating awareness about Puberty and Menstruation on 27th November, 2017 at St. Louis School in Patna for 27 girls from standard VII to X. You can read more about it here.

Safecity Emerging Leaders

Safecity is celebrating the journey of people who have emerged as leaders as our campaigns progressed in their communities through our blog series “Safecity Emerging Leaders”. Read the inspiring stories of these individuals who are passionate about making their neighbourhoods safer with Safecity and have taken action in their own special ways.

Read this month’s Emerging Leader Karishma Jangid’s story on our blog here.

When we asked Karishma about her experience doing an internship with Safecity, this is what she had to say –

“Even though I am not out there helping anyone – joining a candle march or fighting for someone else’s rights, I still have a chance to bring issues in front of people, which deserve and demand our attention at this very moment. I handle Safecity’s Instagram account, which again has connected me to the world in a positive manner.”

We have several opportunities for you to volunteer and take action. Do check our website.

Know Our Team

Know Our Team is a new blog series that attempts to bring to you the stories of our team, share our experiences, why we do what we do and special moments that have left an indelible mark in each of our lives.

Read this month’s blog by Suzanne Goodney Lea, the CEO of Red Dot Foundation Global (RDFG) and her journey with us so far here.

“I immediately recognized the innovative nature of what Elsa was doing— the great value in seeing patterns of violence on a map— and the importance of looking closely at the data she has collected so as to learn how women make sense of and respond to sexual assault and harassment. The mapping allows for engaging the community to develop innovative solutions to address hot spots, which nicely dovetailed with my interest in dialogue and deliberation.”

We are looking for a Program and Outreach Officer for Delhi and Bangalore. Do send your CV to [email protected]

TweetChats

Through our tweetchats we are trying to facilitate important conversations around various issues related to gender in general and women’s issues in particular.

During December, we had tweetchats talking about different ways of ending violence against women during the #16daysofactivism. Some of the chats also covered using alternative education to bring about gender equality and questioned women’s safety during festivities. Check out the storified tweetchats here- Women, Health and Education #16Days, GBV and ways to end it, Can Alternative Education help achieve Gender Equality? and Women’s safety in public places during festivities.

That’s all for this month. Keep watching this space and we’ll keep you updated on all our work and exciting activities every month!

What’s in store for Safecity?

11-12 Jan– Elsa D’Silva will be speaking at World Bank, Washington DC
10th April- Elsa D’Silva will be the key-note speaker at ACT-W, A Conference for Women in Tech
18 May– WE Rotary Session
Every Friday at 9 pm IST/ 1130 am EST join us on Twitter @pinthecreep