Safecity Monthly Updates: March 2019

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.

Vital Voices Global Mentoring Walk

On 2nd March we had our fourth edition of the Vital Voices Global Mentoring Walk, one among the 174 walks organised this year.

In partnership with Prerana Anti-Human Trafficking Centre we witnessed 24 pairs of mentors and mentees learn from each other, find ways to make their dreams and goals come true and Balance for Better.

Some of the feedback we received was,

“Power to Empower is the quote that comes to my mind and it is important as historically women have been regarded as weaker section of the society and still are considered the same in the marginalized sections of the developing countries like India. Vital Voices gives such women a platform not only to dream but to see it as a reality in their mentors. This not only inspires them but gives them hope that dreams can become reality. ”

Web Wonder Women

Supreet K Singh, our COO and Director, was awarded as one of the #WebWonderWomen by Ministry of Women & Child Development, Government of India, TwitterIndia and Breakthrough India for raising awareness on sexual violence through @pinthecreep. This campaign celebrated the exceptional achievements of women, who have been driving positive agenda of social change via social media. We congratulate her and all the amazing #WebWonderWomen

She said, “We are starting conversations with women and children and breaking silences around sexual harassment. Through this platform, I hope we can reach out to more people and create awareness.”

#WEBWONDERWOMEN – Supreet

A writer, film director, gender activist and yoga acharya, Ms. Supreet K. Singh shares how she drives social media to hone these interests and her experience of becoming one of the #WebWonderWomen.

Posted by Ministry of Women & Child Development, Government of India on Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Supreet K Singh receives award at Sambhavaa Awards

On International Women’s Day, Supreet K Singh on behalf of Safecity received an award at the FICCI FLO Ahmedabad Sambhavaa awards presented by Ms.Sushmita Sen.

SXSW Conference and Festivals

Elsa Dsilva, our Founder, spoke at a panel on how gender technology is empowering women at the SXSW 2019 Conference on 9th March.

Finalist in SDG Action Awards

Red Dot Foundation- Safecity has been selected as one of 3 finalists in the Visualiser category of the SDG Action Awards in Bonn. We will be presenting our work at the SDG Action Festival on 2 May and are elated.

Like and Retweet for us to win the People’s Choice Awards- https://twitter.com/SDGaction/status/1113746758037856256

Breaking Silence, Ending Violence

Safecity and our Founder, Elsa Dsilva, were featured by Deutsche Welle TV in the DW – Founders’ Valley programme talking about the need to break the silence around violence in order to make spaces safer for women and girls. You can read more about it here.

Let’s Connect

Our team in Mumbai began its pilot session of Let’s Connect – casual meetings to discuss various topics related to women, gender and safety. The first session, based on Safety, was held at ISDI Mumbai on 16th March 2019.

The session began with a broad overview of ‘Safety’, moved into coffee painting to get the participants’ creative juices flowing, sharing of stories and opinions based on different situations, reflecting and questioning the current scenario of safety and finally, screening of the short film- Nirbhaya Mai, Asifa Mai. You can read more about it here

Launch of the Women’s Safety Handbook

Supreet K Singh was a part of the launch and discussions of the launch of the Women’s Safety Handbook by the National Commission of Women Chairperson Rekha Sharma. The book aims to guide the urban workforce with a module to bridge the safety issues present in the country.

You can read more about it here- http://www.uniindia.com/ncw-chairperson-laun…/…/1527454.html

Survey on Women and the Vote

Safecity and SheThePeopleTV invite you to take this survey- ahead of the General Elections 2019 in India. We would like to understand how women are engaged in the electoral process. This is important for us to determine our agency as a constituency as well as our contribution. We appreciate if you could take this survey if you are a woman and pass it on to your women friends too. A compiled report will be sent out once we get a significant amount of responses.

We would appreciate if you take a few minutes out to fill this survey- http://bit.ly/Womenandthevote

Girl Fund Campaign

We have been selected by Global Giving to be part of their Girl Fund Campaign. We appreciate every generous donation. Even $10 will go a long way.

You can use this link to donate- https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/training-10-youth-campus-ambassadors-on-safety/

Corporate Workshops

This month we have been conducting workshops for Corporates like Saavn Media, Ogilvy and Mather and others. In case you would like us to conduct POSH & Gender Sensitivity workshops at your corporate, please do get in touch with us at [email protected]

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 Kajal Antil’s story on our blog here.

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

“Being involved and sometimes conducting such events individually has helped me grow. It helped me develop professional skills to meet the demands of the role and has also given me a chance to know people. It can increased my ability to adapt to different cultural demands and behavioural expectations to handle sensitive situations. Eventually, it helped me make a positive contribution to the growth and development of society in my own way.”

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

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 March’s compiled tweetchats here – Gender and Fiction, Making #WomensHealth a Priority, Water, Violence and its Co-relation and Water Crisis- Time to consider water footprints.