Safecity Monthly Updates – August 2021
Safecity is committed to creating safer communities for everyone. Our goal is to empower citizens by helping them understand the potential risks they could face in different neighbourhoods. We can do this by sharing our experiences or others and make these stories available for all. The platform serves law enforcement agencies with information on sexual harassment and other crimes occurring in public and private spaces. The platform’s data helps keep public spaces safe by enabling authorities to keep track of incidents and prevent sexual harassment in the future.
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Peer Mentoring Bootcamp with Rural Digital Entrepreneurs
Peer Mentoring bootcamp is an interactive online mentoring program organised by Red Dot Foundation and SANI Mumbai with rural Digital Entrepreneurs.
The rural Digital Entrepreneurs are rural women trained on imparting Digital Financial Literacy to the rural – urban community. During the “peer mentoring” boot camp ten rural Digital Entrepreneurs shared their inspiring stories post which the 78 participants in the audience offered their expert advice to help them overcome some of the challenges they identified.
In the second phase of this programme, the 10 rural digital entrepreneurs have been paired with peer mentors for a three month period. During this time they will work together to achieve their goals of establishing and/or scaling up their Digital Seva Kendras. They will present their experiences of this mentoring programme and progress on 23 October 2021.
The Mentors in this program are senior women leaders from the corporate sector who have professional expertise to offer sound opinions or advice to the rural digital entrepreneurs. Red Dot Foundation believes in the power of mentoring and paying it forward.
Each rural Digital Entrepreneur will undergo at least five mentoring sessions with their mentors. In addition, they will attend Masterclasses on social entrepreneurship, digital literacy, marketing and other capacity building sessions which will help them in strengthening their organisations and achieving their personal and professional goals.
We thank Sabir Sayed for conducting a masterclass on basic digital literacy skills and Karon Shaiva and the IDOBRO team for conducting a masterclass on social entrepreneurship.
One great example of how the mentoring sessions are helping the rural Digital Entrepreneurs is when mentor Kshiti Gala, Senior Strategist, Plum Insights and Strategy developed a brochure for her mentee Shubhangi Hulsure. This was an outcome of a session where they were exploring how to generate customer feedback and incorporate it into marketing strategies.
Youth Innovation Challenge on Gender and Climate Justice
The annual Youth Innovation Challenge (YIC) was launched on 12th August 2021. The topic this year is Gender & Climate Justice and is a parallel activity to our Urban Thinkers Campus, a UN-Habitat World Campaign event. The YIC is jointly hosted by Red Dot Foundation in partnership with The Consulate General of Sweden in Mumbai, The Joint Commissioner, Directorate of Municipal Administration, Government of Maharashtra, UN-Habitat, Global Utmaning (a Swedish NGO), YuWaah & The Maharashtra WASH coalition.
The YIC was open to youth from Maharashtra and Goa. Of the total number of 105 entries received, 48 were shortlisted for jury selection at a virtual jury meet that was held on 6th August 2021.
The esteemed jury panel comprised of:
- Elin Andersdotter Fabre, UN-Habitat
- Thomas Melin, Global Utmaning
- Pradnesh Desai, Consulate General of Sweden in Mumbai
- Swati Mohapatra, UNICEF
- Sameer Unhale, Govt of Maharashtra
- Daivata Chavan Patil, University of Mumbai
- Mabel Abraham, L&T
- Harish Iyer, Axis Bank
- Latha Sankarnarayan, Developmatrix
- Shishir Joshi, Project Mumbai
- Ruben Mascarenhas, Khaana Chahiye
- Anup Verma, Kalpataru
- Vikram Saraph, Science and Technology Park, Pune
After great deliberation, the jury finally selected 12 teams for the social incubator. Each team has been assigned mentors to guide them with their projects.
An official launch session was held on 12th August 2021, The International Day of Youth for all participating teams, mentors and jury members. Ms. Anna Lekvall, Consul General of Sweden in Mumbai gave the opening address.
The lucky 12 teams that are shortlisted for the social incubator are:
Several masterclasses on varied topics will be conducted in August and September. The first masterclass for the teams on Business Model Canvas was conducted by ElsaMarie D’Silva (Founder, Red Dot Foundation) on 17th August. The teams are super excited and currently working with their mentors and will make their final pitch on 22 October 2021.
Get to know the Chevening Scholarships
Chevening is the UK government’s international scholarships programme. Funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and partner organisations, they offer awards to study in the UK for one year on a fully-funded master’s degree course. To find out more about applying for the Chevening scholarships, check this discussion hosted by ElsaMarie DSilva with Kanta Singh (Country Programme Manager, UN Women India), Iknoor Kaur (Communications Strategist, SPAG), Sonakshi Chaudhry (Senior Analyst, The Quantum Hub) and Wasim Akram (Deputy Director, Special Projects Division Wildlife SOS). Supriya Chawla (Head – Chevening Scholarships, British High Commission, India) gave a detailed introductory address on Chevening scholarships and the application process.
Importance of Cyber Safety Education in School Curriculum
Red Dot Foundation hosted an event on the Importance of Cyber Safety Education in the School Curriculum on 25 Aug 2021. A white paper on our project Cyber Safety from a Gender Lens was released. It had the learnings and recommendations from the project which was in partnership with the US Consulate General of Mumbai and Cyber Saathi. As part of the project, we facilitated workshops for 5202 youth, parents and teachers in Western India and Rajasthan.
Mr Yoon Nam, Cultural Affairs and Dosti House Head from the US Consulate General Mumbai gave the introductory address. This was followed by a panel discussion moderated by ElsaMarie DSilva with Ms. Nappinai NS, Advocate Supreme Court of India and Founder, Cyber Saathi, Ms Daivata Patil, Assoc Professor, Mumbai University and Dr Andrea Adams, Assoc Professor, University of the District of Columbia. It was a lively discussion with many questions from teachers and students in the audience.
Safe Campus Project, Phaltan
Safe Campus is an advocacy campaign to ensure that all Educational Institutions create safe campuses by implementing the POCSO (The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act in Phaltan Taluka in the Satara district of Maharashtra, India. We are immensely grateful to Rise Up for Girls and Cummins India for supporting this project.
This month was full of interesting sessions on topics like safe and unsafe touch, safety and safe spaces, women and freedom, personality development, cyber safety, etc. Young Girl Leaders actively participated as well as spread the learnings from the session in their neighbourhood.
In August, we conducted 9 sessions, in which we had 77 participants who were teachers, along with 83 youth participants.
Our team has been working hard to get involvement from a maximum number of schools and colleges. We have been in touch with principals of various schools and colleges of Phaltan to complete formalities and get nominations for girl students who will act as Young Girl Leaders and facilitate safe campuses in their respective schools and colleges.
This month, we have managed to get confirmations from 135 schools for the Safe Campus project, and 82 Young Girl Leaders have been nominated by their respective schools for the project.
Rangoli made by one of the Youth leaders, Yogita, after the session on “Women and Freedom” on the eve of Independence Day
Youth leader, Pakija, a student of Mahatma Phule College drew this painting after the session on safe and unsafe touch
This drawing was made by Sanjana, a Youth leader, after the session “What is safety and what makes a space safer?”.
This drawing was made by Pakija, a Youth leader from Mahatma Phule College, after she attended the session “What is safety and what makes a space safer?”.
Safety Champion Campaign II – August 2021
Through the Safety Champion Campaign, we have been successfully engaging youth every month in collecting reports of incidents of harassment and safety violations on our Safecity app. Safety Champion Campaign is an initiative to empower young leaders to take action against sexual and gender-based violence while giving them first-hand experience of communication and organisational skills. Reports collected by youth are mapped into maps to reflect and detect unsafe spaces. The purpose of this is to find location-based trends about unsafe spaces.
We started this campaign with Internshala in March 2021 and then initiated Phase II of this campaign in July. Since July we have received tremendous support from people and very encouraging feedback from them.
In the month of August, 78 Safety Champions completed the campaign. Champions who completed this campaign shared that the Safecity app plays an important role in making spaces safer.
The feedback responses from the Champions reflect that their knowledge regarding sexual harassment/gender-based violence increased significantly due to this campaign.
Safecity Safety Champion Ankita shares her experience
Safecity Safety Champion Niharika Mattigunta shares her experience
I loved working with Safecity. The experience gave me an opportunity to know more about incidents happening around me and a better idea and understanding of our legislation. The Safecity team is very helpful and patient in responding to our queries even on weekends.
When I spoke to people around me I got to know more about the incidents and discrimination happening around, which are mostly ignored and aren’t reported to the police. After the submission of every incident, the Safecity app/website helps people by providing various helpline numbers along with the section pertaining to that incident which I think helps people a lot.
The safety tips help people to know how to react when inappropriate incidents happen, especially for women. Reported incidents help to understand how safe a particular place is for women.
SafeCircle
SafeCircle is a safe listening circle for survivors of violence and abuse to find support. During COVID-19 we have witnessed increasing numbers of cases of intimate partner /domestic violence and online harassment. Through these listening circles, survivors will find a community of support, share strategies to address and prevent the violence and offer solidarity to peers. Since May 2020 we have been providing psychosocial support to over 25 survivors.
If you would like to attend a SafeCircle please visit here.
Intern Talks – Rutu
I joined Safecity as a graphic design intern, and my daily work here is to work on graphics for social media.
When I joined in the month of July 2021, I did not know what I was getting myself into. It was the very first time I was going to work out of my comfort zone and it was my very first internship. Obviously, I was very nervous, as I had barely any industry experience and my skills were also not so strong as I had just begun my journey as a graphic designer. But then I came across such an amazing team who are always there to help, no matter what the situation is, be it personal or professional.
Working in Safecity has not just helped me professionally build up my skills but has also helped me grow as a person. Today I see a huge change in my approach to design and the way I place myself in the world from one who was always intimidated by people and had very low confidence in my work and self.
Red Dot Foundation – Safecity for me is so special and I’m forever going to cherish every moment that I’m here.
– Rutuparna Nayak
PES University
Key points to understand through data
Click here to see the Safecity Data Graphics for the month of August.
Safecity Reporting Platform
Safecity is a platform as a service product that powers communities, police and city government to prevent violence in public and private spaces. Our technology stack collects and analyses crowdsourced, anonymous reports of violent crime, identifying patterns and key insights. This data enables citizens, researchers and policymakers to create safer spaces by:
- Increasing awareness, transparency and public accountability
- Improving policy and tactical precision with data-led insights
- Optimising budgets to more effectively allocate resources
Get in touch if you want to be a Safecity partner.
Report an incident on Safecity Platform
Download Safecity App on iOS Devices
Download Safecity App on Android Devices
Upcoming Events
- 2, 3, 16, 17 Sep – Art for Healing Program.
- 14, 15 Sep – Urban Thinkers Campus on “Climate Action for Resilient Communities by and for Women.” Register here.
- Tweetchats every Friday at 9 pm IST on Twitter at @TheSafecityApp.
Ongoing Events
- Youth Innovation Challenge on Gender and Climate Justice.
- Peer Mentoring Bootcamp with Rural Digital Entrepreneurs.