Safecity Monthly Newsletter : October 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.

Safecity at UN Consultation

Safecity was a part of the UN Women Consultation on building Safer Cities and Safer Public Spaces, where it engaged partners and experts to build domain-specific solutions to address the issue of sexual harassment in public spaces. The program was held in Jaipur and the one day consultation involved working in teams to devise solutions, Safecity was part of groups working on law based recommendations and on solutions that looked at aspects of health, sanitation and education. Ashwini Syed, Head of HR and Operations, and Vandita Morarka, our Policy, Legal and UN Liaison Officer, represented Safecity at the event.

Feminist Rani

At this month’s Feminist Rani, organised by She The People, the panelists discussed how widespread sexual harassment is and how consent plays a big role in it. Author Meghna Pant was joined by Mallika Dua, Supreet Singh (our COO and Director) and Harnidh Kaur – who use different mediums from comedy to poetry to technology to address these issues and effect change.

Top 50 Rising Stars 2017 Winners

We are happy to announce Elsa D’Silva, our Founder & CEO, and Vandita Morarka, Policy and Legal Officer are winners for WeAreTheCity’s top 50 Rising Star Awards in India for 2017.

TUB with Safecity

The Uncommon Box in collaboration with Safecity provided a platform to people to raise their voices, speak out and share their experiences, suggestions, and views in form of words, pictures, poetry, painting against sexual harassment.

These are the entries that broke through the crowds to tell us stories of sexual violence-

Nano Tales

Blog- It’s Time to Speak Up

Blog- The Silent Scream of the Survivor

Contributor of the Month

Safecity commends its users for making use of the app to create safer spaces and reporting violence in public spaces. We encourage you to organise events and activities in your neighbourhood, increase awareness and pin the creeps!

Gender Equality Watch

This monthly series by Safecity will track the latest decisions of Indian courts on women’s rights and equal access for all genders. The aim is to make the functioning of our judicial system more accessible to readers, to create a well informed body of public opinion, and to ensure that we know our rights. Read our first issue here.

Updates from Pune, Maharashtra

A Prevention of Child Sexual Offences (Safe touch and Unsafe touch) workshop for children aged 5 to 10 years was organised by Safecity on Sunday 8th Oct 2017 in Pune.

The importance of staying safe, finding solutions when faced with a situation and always keeping parents or trusted ones informed, was discussed through videos, dance, drawings and sharing of personal experiences.

Updates from Patna, Bihar

Naina Jha conducted a Gender Sensitisation Workshop for 12 teachers of St. John English School on 5th October, 2017 in Patna.

News from Delhi

The Safecity Awareness workshop was conducted in association with the Women Development Cell of Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi. It was attended by 25 students and the session was focused on personal safety, gender and sexual harassment.

The segments of the workshops on UGC guidelines, Zero FIR, Internal Complaints Committee were most liked by the students.

News from Ahmedabad, Gujarat

On the 4th and 6th of Oct, in a session organised by an NGO- Janvikas, Noorjahan Ansari, Safecity’s Program and Outreach Officer, conducted a workshop creating awareness about the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) in Nani Devti, Ahmedabad.

She spoke to the people about CSA, the law that protects children against it, the work that Safecity does and how our mobile app can help anyone anywhere to report sexual violence. Our work in Ahmedabad is sponsored by Godrej Consumer Products Limited.

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 Sabah Batul’s story on our blog here.

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

“The stories I shared of the people Safecity had influenced were heart-warming and inciting! And now I am ecstatic that I have a similar opportunity. Safecity is my answer to doing something bigger than my existence. I am really proud and happy to say I am a part of their motivational journey! I will always remember what I learned here, and make sure their cycle of support and guidance does not end with me.”

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 Nneka Edwards, who writes about her experience with Safecity’s parent organisation- Red Dot Foundation Global and her journey with us so far here.

“Nneka Edwards met Elsa D’Silva at the home of a mutual friend and Safecity board member, Suzanne Lea in the fall of 2016. From that day forward, Nneka felt compelled to find her own way to push the Safecity initiative forward. In early 2017, Nneka’s opportunity to make an impact through Safecity came. Red Dot Foundation Global (Red Dot) was created to be Safecity’s U.S. based counterpart. Establishing this new entity gave Nneka space to help set-up Red Dot’s organizational foundation. Nneka’s specialty lies in her ability to meet objectives by connecting people across disciplines.”

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.

Check out the storified tweetchats here- Strengthening International GBV Laws, Indian Laws and Gender Based Violence, Safety in Last Mile Connectivity in Public Transport and Entrepreneurship and Sustainability.

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?

Tweetchats leading to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) 2017
15th Nov – Women of the Future, London
17th Nov- Global Entrepreneurship Summit Online Panel Discussion on ‘Balancing Business with Purpose‘ at 7 pm IST/ 1.30 pm GMT/ 9.30 am EST
21st Nov – Oxford University
28th November- Social Impact Lab Speaker Series 2017/18 at the University of Southampton- ‘In conversation with ElsaMarie D’Silva’ Get your ticket here: https://social-impact-lab-speaker-elsamarie.eventbrite.co.uk
29th Nov – Nominet Trust conference
Every Friday at 9 pm IST/ 1130 am EST join us on Twitter @pinthecreep