Safecity Monthly Newsletter : January 2018
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.
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.
World Bank Conference– Transforming Transportation
Our Founder Elsa Dsilva was part of the World Bank‘s Sustainable Mobility for All (gender working group) meeting in Washington DC. She spoke at the Transportation Transformation conference. You can read more about it here- Transport is not gender neutral and watch the conversation where she spoke about the importance of sustainable mobility for all here.
ICDCI Conference
Vandita Morarka presented at the International Conference on Developmental Challenges in India in Chennai on 31st Jan and spoke about the use of Safecity data to address sexual harassment in public transportation
She Ambassador Programme
Safecity collaborated with PVR Nest on a campaign called #ShesAmbassador – the first ever health and leadership programme by PVR and MOGS for Adolescents. As a part of this collaboration Safecity created modules on various topics and conducted a #TraintheTrainer workshop for the team that would deliver our modules to over 2000 children in Mumbai.
National Girl Child Day
24th January was celebrated as the National Girl Child Day. Safecity hosted a panel discussion and Facebook live on Creating an Empowering Environment for Children where we tapped into the expertise of Farida Lambay from Pratham Education Foundation, Priti Patkar from Prerana Anti-Human Trafficking and Nipa Bhansali from Leher. The discussion highlighted the challenges young girls face and celebrated the work of the selfless activists who dedicate their time, effort and skill to improve their lives. You can watch the entire discussion here.
Awareness Workshop at Hansraj College
On 11th of January an awareness workshop was organised by Safecity in Hansraj college. The workshop covered the fundamentals of gender and sex, safe and unsafe touch and the importance of reporting sexual harassment. Read more about it here.
Workshops
Safecity is creating awareness about the same by conducting workshops on Prevention of Sexual Harassment of women at the Workplace (POSH) at corporates like G4S Security Services and Saavn Media to ensure a safe working environment for all.
Global Compact on Migration
Red Dot Foundation received special accreditation to the Global Compact preparatory process for Migration by the United Nations Member States.
Check out the report on the Online Consultations by Safecity for the Global Compact on Migration by Vandita Morarka, Nikunj Morarka and Immanuel Adriana Rakshana from our Policy and Legal Team
Safecity’s Submission on Online Violence against Women to the UN Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner put out a call for submissions on online violence against women. Immanuel Adriana Rakshana, Sanaya Patel and Vandita Morarka from the Policy and Legal team at Safecity drafted the following submissions, under the provided themes, towards supporting the building of solutions to tackle online violence against women. A compilation of the three submissions is provided here.
I will Go Out- 21st Jan
Safecity supported #IWillGoOut on 21st Jan by conducting an audit of Lokhandwala Back Road, Mumbai along with other organisations like Reboot, SXonomics, Zero Tolerance and others. They had a great time chalking the streets on the Lokhandwala Back Road and talking to people about the issues they face. Several of them chalked their thoughts, shared their stories and expressed an interest to do more.
Safecity in collaboration with Suzlon Foundation and sponsored by Society for Development Alternatives, its NGO partner, will test out the Safecity model in rural Satara and many nearby villages. Satara is a rural district on the out skirts of Maharashtra, India. Safecity is also doing a project in two villages in Patna, viz., Mehandiganj and Pakauli, to eradicate gender based violence. Our local level partner is Nirman who is helping us reach people and avail places for training. These projects are scheduled to run from February to June and will consists of awareness workshops on types of sexual harassment, relevant laws/legislation regarding sexual violence and redressal procedures, introducing the Safecity reporting platform and exploring new ways to report on it or exploring new means of reporting. The collected data will be used to facilitate community dialogue and explore ideas for resolution. The project will be concluded with a case study and impact assessment. The entire team is really excited and anxious to embark on this project.
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 Rohit Agarwal in December and Sanaya Patel in January.
Updates from Patna, Bihar
Naina Jha conducted a POCSO Awareness Workshop at KahaniGharr (Patna) on 22nd Dec for 35 children.
She asked them about the literal meanings of safe and unsafe which they knew but were a bit confused about safe and unsafe touch. With examples she explained the difference in touches, trusted adults, private body parts with the help of a video. She used stories to check whether they had understood the concepts correctly.
Updates from Ahmedabad
On 14th January, 2018, on the occasion of Makar Sankranti, Safecity organised a workshop creating awareness about gender based violence and women safety at Ahmedabad river front where organisations working on women and child’s issues participated like Godrej Resource Centre (GRC), Jahan-e-Niswan, Janvikash, Sanyog, Nyyagraha. 60 people were a part of the workshop. Since it was Makar Sankranti and kites are important on this occasion, we decided to spread awareness by writing messages and pictures on the kites.
Safecity Emerging Leaders
Read this month’s Emerging Leader Sanaya Patel’s story on our blog here
When we asked Sanaya about her experience doing an internship with Safecity, this is what she had to say –
“I work with a bunch of women who are examples of performative feminism, of compassion, and intelligence. I am taking steps to unlearn the ‘norms’ of society with respect to my interactions with others, my perception of my own body, and what it means to be a woman and a feminist.”
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 Trisha Litz and her journey with us so far here.
“Trisha’s passion is leveraging computer technology to make the world a better place. In pursuit of her passion, in March 2017 she attended the Project X-ite, Flight-2-Denver event where she met Elsa and worked with other Denver area faculty, students and business people on Elsa’s team. Through this great event, the SafeCity Denver team was formed.”
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 January, we had tweetchats talking about sexual harassment in public spaces, in particular, during festivals and in crowded places. Check out the storified tweetchats here- Safety issues during Festivals, Moral Policing on Dressing- Yay or Nay?, Harassment (touching/groping) in crowded places and Sexual Harassment in Universities and Colleges.
- 4th Feb at Samvaadam VOL III : Mumbai Edition as Elsa D’Silva talks about her journey with Safecity
- World Urban Forum (UN Habitat) in Kuala Lumpur
– 8th Feb – Technology for Safer Cities at 9 am to 11 am in Room 401. Jane Anyango our Safecity Kenya partner is hosting this and we will be joined by our new Safecity Malaysia partner Radziah Radzi from Sisterhood Alliance.
– 8th Feb – Apps to address GBV at 5-6 pm in Room 405. Safecity is cohosting with Kalpana Viswanath from Safetipin and Kirthi Jayakumar from The Red Elephant Foundation
-10th Feb– Tackling gender equality through technology and crowdsourced data
- Commission for the Status of Women (UN Women) in New York
– 22nd March – Addressing sexual violence through technology & crowdsourced data – 0430 pm at Salvation Army. We will be joined by Jane Anyango from Polycom Development Project, Holly Kearl from Stop Street Harassment, Sharda Vishwanathan from The Red Elephant Foundation and Nicole Joseph our Safecity partner from Trinidad & Tobago. - 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
