Safecity Monthly Updates – December 2022

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 anonymously 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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Happy New Year!

Wishing you and your family a very happy and prosperous New Year!

Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Fellowship

Red Dot Foundation along with the Swedish Alumni Network of India (SANI) Mumbai chapter is running the inaugural program for ESG Fellows.

10 Mumbai-based fellows are being mentored on ESG by members of the Swedish Alumni Network. The members have also agreed to host masterclasses to further the knowledge and skill of youth in Mumbai on the topic of ESG.

The fellowship which began in November 2023 will run till 31 March 2023. During this time, the youth will have to develop, design and implement a community-based ESG project.

The participants have been connected with their mentors and have reached out to them to begin their mentoring sessions.

Two masterclasses were conducted in December:

1st December – Masterclass on Governance by Behroz Gazdar

6th December – Masterclass on ESG 101 by Karon Shaiva.

Safety Audit: Public Transport Delhi/NCR

A glimpse into the safety audit conducted by 8 students of the social sector during the 16 days of activism – “End Gender-Based Violence”:

Stand Up Against Street Harassment

Red Dot Foundation has partnered with L’Oreal Paris India and Right To Be in its efforts to raise awareness regarding street harassment in public spaces and train local communities on how to take appropriate action.

After successfully training 7000 people on ByStander Intervention until November 2022, the RDF team has further trained 800 people in the month of December.

If you would like to organize a session for your team, please reach out to us at [email protected].

Field Trips & Roundtable: “Elimination of Violence Against Women”

Against the backdrop of two Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) events held on March 8 & September 14 and Spain’s semester as EU Gender Champion, the Consulate Generals of Spain, Canada, France and Germany came together with Red Dot Foundation to be a part of the international campaign “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence against women and girls” supported by the United Nations.

The aim of this activity was:

To contribute towards the elimination of violence against women.
To support civil society organizations in this area:
- By offering a new forum to express their concerns, recommendations and activities for improving this area.
- By facilitating the creation of networks and synergies and facilitating more coordination between civil society and public administration.

In this context, the Consulate Generals hosted a twofold activity. First, field trips (One Stop Center at KEM Hospital, Prerana Anti-Trafficking NGO, Matunga Railway Station and Children’s Aid Society), and second culminating the campaign on December 7th with a Conference on Elimination of Violence Against Women.

The round table discussions culminated with multiple stakeholders pledging:

To train and employ women who have been trafficked into sex work and would like alternate means of employment.

On our part:

Red Dot Foundation proposed a joint campaign on consent, through constant social media promotion of 12 posters from January 2023 to March 2023, that will be endorsed by all guests who were present.

Alumni Circles

On December 9, 2022, 50 experts and US Exchange Alumni from Western India kickstarted a dialogue on 4 thematic areas – Education, Women’s Economic Empowerment, Climate Change and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility. Over the next 4 months they will work together on a collaborative project. The Exchange Alumni Circles are a peer education and networking space to foster a deeper community engagement amongst the alumni. We thank the US Consulate General, Mumbai for giving us the opportunity to facilitate this program.

The series include ways to enhance women’s economic empowerment, create safe and inclusive spaces for all at workspaces and leverage partnership with foreign institutions to realize the dreams and aspirations of young students for future study and work over a period of 6 months.

Youth Innovation Challenge

The online final event held on December 13, 2022, was well attended. Many of those who had been a part of the process like mentors, judges and masterclass facilitators attended, watched and cheered the teams.

Mentors and team members recounted their experiences during the 3 month period of working together.

9 teams selected, 7 teams made their final bold pitches with extreme confidence, beautifully designed audio visual presentations and clarity and were judged on criteria of Originality, Impact, Simplicity/Hyperlocal, Feasibility, Scalability, Inclusivity, Presentation & Response, by an eminent panel of jurors.

The jury members were briefed, prior to the final event, of the course charted for the Youth Innovation Challenge and they were highly impressed with the results of the teams’ ideas and solutions and deftly answering queries thrown at them. After a 15 minute long deliberation, the jury emerged from the breakout room with the much awaited results.

Feedback from the jury:

“Heartiest congratulations to you and your team for yet another brilliantly organised edition of Youth innovation Challenge. Please convey my compliments and best wishes to all your team members.” – Ayush Gupta, Director (HR), GAIL.

“Really good initiative! Your processes are excellent.” – Bineesha Payattati, Executive Director, International Institute of Waste Management.

Rainbow Circles

In our constant pursuit to create safe spaces, RDF collaborates with the US Consulate General, Mumbai, to create a safe campus culture, and to reduce the risk of gender-based violence on campuses through our project – “Safe, Inclusive, and Diverse Campuses (Rainbow Circles)”.

This program is for students (above the age of 18), faculty, and administration, in colleges in Karnataka, Goa, and Maharashtra. Five students from each college were nominated by the institution, and are training in a leadership course by RDF.

Shankarov Jagtap Arts & Commerce College, Wagholi, Satara, organised a programme where they expressed their gratitude to Shital Vidhate from Red Dot Foundation for training the students and introducing important topics to them.

Toxic Masculinity and Harmful Gender Stereotypes

The Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Mumbai and Red Dot Foundation hosted an event on ‘Toxic Masculinity and Harmful Gender Stereotypes’ to conclude the International campaign “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence” with college students in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

The event was attended by the Deputy Consul General of the Kingdom of Netherlands – Mr. Thierry Van Helden, who spoke briefly to the students about Street Harassment, Gender Stereotypes and Toxic Masculinity. emphasizing that these problems are faced not only in India but in the Netherlands as well. He also impressed the importance of being able to challenge such stereotypes and keep oneself safe from harassment.

A brief introduction on the work done by Red Dot Foundation, a session conducted on ByStander Intervention in Street Harassment, a play on Toxic Masculinity enacted by MAVA (Men Against Violence and Abuse) and a roundtable discussion where students participated enthusiastically and share their experiences highlighted the day’s event.

Annual Report 2021 – 2022

Please read the annual report for the year 2021-2022: Click here.

SafeCircle

SafeCircle is a safe listening circle for survivors of violence and trauma to find support. The space is facilitated by our CEO Supreet K Singh and through these listening circles, survivors have found a community of support and solidarity where they share strategies and learn from each other’s experiences. Since May 2020 we have been providing psychosocial support to over 25 survivors.

Read on to learn more about SafeCircle here.

Sessions for SafeCircle will resume soon.

BeliEVE

Come January 2023, we are ready to roll out beliEVE Season 3 with aawaz.com

Watch out for this space in the coming weeks to hear the stories of 12 trailblazers.

Changemaker of the Month – Nisha Kumari

Nisha Kumari was a volunteer who worked with us for the Public Transport Audit of Delhi/NCR. She is doing her Bachelors in Social Work from IGNOU University. She shared that this internship taught her a lot like how to talk to the community, how to start the conversation on sexual harassment and how to encourage women to share their stories. She learnt that we should share our problems with an open-mind and frankly search for platforms like Safecity because helping others and taking help should be common and easy in the community.

Key points to understand through data – December

Reports collected from India in the month of December 2022

Click here to see the Safecity Data Dashboards.

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: [email protected]

Report an incident on Safecity Platform
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Upcoming Events

Alumni Circles
Rainbow Circles
Domestic Violence Workshops in collaboration with the Australian Consulate
Sage – BRAVE Movement Roundtables
Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Fellowship
Vital Voices Training –
Virtual You, Real Me Training – Red Dot Foundation Global
Safecity Twitter Chats & Spaces

Ongoing Projects

Rainbow Circles
Community Health Workers Trainings with HDFC Bank – Parivartan
Community Health Workers Trainings with City of Stuttgart
Mentoring on Personal Leadership with Young Girls and Women with Adventures of the Mind
Stand Up Against Street Harassment with L’Oreal Paris India and Right To Be
Responsible Tourism Programme with SIDBI
My Body, My Rights – Sage BRAVE Movement
Alumni Circles