Safecity Monthly Updates – March 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.

Subscribe to our newsletter here

Advancing Feminist Leadership for a Sustainable Future #IWD2022

In observance of International Women’s Day 2022, the Consulates General of Sweden, Canada, France, Germany, and Spain – countries with feminist foreign policies – collaborated to highlight how a feminist foreign policy can contribute to a nation’s development.

In association with UN Women and NGO-partner Red Dot Foundation, the diplomatic missions organized a first-of-its-kind group initiative – an interactive roundtable discussion on “Advancing Feminist Leadership for a Sustainable Future.”

A specially selected, diverse group of fifty individuals from various walks of life—private sector, local government, NGOs, artists, and influencers—shared their experiences of advancing gender equality, challenging bias, and recommending concrete suggestions for securing a sustainable future.

The event aimed at advancing gender equality through personal experiences, individual commitments, and partnerships.

Watch the video here.

Data Visualisation Challenge on Women’s Safety

Red Dot Foundation in partnership with the Consulate General of Ireland in Mumbai hosted a Data Visualization Challenge on Women’s Safety with university students from India and Ireland. The program started in November 2021 and ended in March 2022.

The aim of the challenge was to encourage students to analyze data, understand patterns and trends emerging from it. The findings could either point to contributing factors of gender-based discrimination and violation or identify correlated features that need to be challenged. The participants then came up with innovative and creative ideas to visualize the issue to a larger audience by highlighting the problem and recommending solutions.

Various masterclasses were held for the participants:

Masterclass on Gender Sensitization by ElsaMarie D’Silva
Masterclass on Data Analytics by Prof. Eleni Mangina and her associates Suzan Leavy, Liliana Pasquale and Vivek Nallur from the University College of Dublin
Masterclass on Data Mapping and Community Engagement by Ritu David

After the last masterclass all 12 teams geared up for their visualizations. 6 finalists were selected after much deliberation by a jury of 11.

On 4th March, 2022 the final event for the Data Visualization Challenge took place. The jury picked the top 3 winning teams of the challenge on the basis of the pitches made by the 6 finalist teams.

First Prize: The first prize was bagged by two teams. The leading team explored the concept of unexpected assaults – assaults that happen during daylight, and in places that are not usually associated with danger such as markets, temples, or homes. The other team’s visualization titled “No Way Home” was a reference to the Marvel movie universe, encapsulating the theme of general responses from families of gender-based violence survivors.

Second Prize: The second-place team visualized data on unsafe public transportation that directly affects economic growth by restricting women’s mobility resulting in lesser access to economic opportunities, education and employment.

Third Prize: The third prize winners visualized the post-traumatic experiences of a survivor. Their submission focused on the emotional aftereffects of a sexual offence that may dictate the decision of a survivor to report or not and the reflection on that incident of violence afterwards.

Watch the final event here.

Young Collective Voices for Safer Spaces

Young Collective Voices for Safer Spaces was a series of capacity building workshops facilitated jointly by Red Dot Foundation, the Australian High Commission in Mumbai and the Queensland University of Technology’s Design Lab and Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice.

Through a series of interactive creative workshops, 20 youth from Mumbai, Pune and Goa developed critical thinking and advocacy skills to challenge harmful gender stereotypes. The third and final session of the 3 part workshop series was held on 4th March.

After a recap of the two previous sessions, the students were encouraged to each share 1 or 2 key points that stood out for them from the previous session. This was followed by an exercise on expressing oneself through movement. The students then went into breakout rooms, where they discussed the past sessions and then each wrote a letter to their future selves in the backdrop of biases that they encounter in the present.

At the end of the sessions, the students had the opportunity to decide who amongst them would conduct an Insta Live interview from Safecity’s Instagram account on International Women’s Day 2022 with a senior female leader from the Australian Consulate.

The students went through a session with the RDF team where they were taken through the process of hosting an Insta Live. They then put their heads together and brainstormed questions that could be asked at the interview.

Watch this Insta Live, the final event of this workshop, where a youth representative, Saadiya Shaikh from KC College, was in conversation with a senior leader, Ms Grace-Ann Lobo, Public Diplomacy Officer, from the Australian Consulate General in Mumbai on challenging harmful gender norms and bias and creating safe spaces.

Here’s what Saadiya Shaikh had to say:

“The interview was hands down the most incredible and insightful thing I’ve done till date, no exaggeration. The fact that I got to represent my colleagues in front of the Australian Consulate was surreal. Also, talking to Ms.Grace Ann Lobo was so refreshing and comforting. It felt like I was talking to her sitting in the same room. Thanking everyone for choosing me to attend these sessions, to ensure that I make a change in society and myself.”

Book Series She Is … we’re ready to STEAM ahead!

To commemorate India’s 75th year of Independence, Red Dot Foundation, The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India and Beyond Black collaborated to honour 75 Indian Women in STEAM (fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) through its ‘She Is’ book series. Nominations were invited from women in leadership positions who are driving sustainable development. We received an overwhelming response of almost 200 entries from women across diverse disciplines within the fields of STEM and the Arts and Humanities.

The nominations were sent for selection to an esteemed jury comprising of:

Ms Kanta Singh, UN Women – Deputy Country Representative
Ms Jayanti Dalmia, President Elect, FICCI Flo
Prof (Dr) Chitra Rajagopal, Director, CoE Process Safety, Risk management & Green hydrogen, IITD
Dr Mridula Nair, Eastman Kodak Company
Ms Aparna Gupta, Executive Director, Customer Success, Microsoft India
Dr. Anuradda Ganesh, Chief Technical Advisor, Cummins Technologies and Adjunct Professor, IIT Bombay
Ms Aafreen Siddiqui, Regional Engagement Lead, Government Innovation, UNDP Asia-Pacific
Dr Deepali Nimbalkar, Senior Scientist and Head, Department of Environmental Sciences, Vasantdada Sugar Institute
Ms Seemantinee Khot, Senior Evaluation Specialist, FAO
Dr. Patricia Pinto, Science & Innovation Adviser, UK Science and Innovation Network, British Deputy High Commission Mumbai, India

After several deliberations, an eminent jury panel selected 75 women to be featured in the book. The British High Commission hosted a reception on March 3 on the occasion of International Women’s Day to announce the book launch and honour the women in the presence of the Principal Scientific Adviser, Professor K Vijay Raghavan and His Excellency, The British High Commissioner, Mr. Alex Ellis, Supreet K Singh, CEO Red Dot Foundation, Rashmi Putcha, Founder of Inaari and Dr Yama Dixit, Assistant Professor, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi, were invited to share their leadership journeys.

We congratulate all the 75 awesome women who have been selected to be featured in the She Is book series – STEAM. Stay tuned for more details on this project.

Act for Gender and Climate Justice – A virtual parallel event at the NGO CSW66 Forum

Red Dot Foundation organised a panel discussion on “Act for Gender and Climate Justice” at the NGO CSW66 Forum with Rema Rajeshwari, Neelam Gupta, Smita Mankad, Sumaira Abdulali and Runa Ray.

It was an insightful discussion that was moderated by our Founder, ElsaMarie D’Silva.

The discussion focused more on solutions rather than the problems. It highlighted the challenges faced by women in India during the ongoing pandemic. Through the practical work of the speakers, they shed light on various grassroots initiatives tackling violence against women, livelihoods, food scarcity, environmental pollution and economic empowerment. The solutions ranged from women and artisan collectives, use of technology to map and address gender-based violence, community-led initiatives on environmental justice and empowering rural women, especially farmers to reclaim their agency.

Watch the panel discussion here.

Red Dot Foundation Global Engagement at CSW66

The 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women took place from 14 to 25 March 2022. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CSW66 took place in a hybrid format.

Red Dot Foundation Global contributed at the sessions that prioritised achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes as well as women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work.

Chevening Mentoring Program

The Chevening Mentoring Program which started in February with 21 mentor-mentee pairs came to a close in March.

The final session was held on 16th March. The keynote address was given by Supriya Chawla – Head Scholarships Chevening – British High Commission. ElsaMarie D’Silva, Founder, Red Dot Foundation, spoke about the benefits of mentoring and the successes of past mentoring programs.

Here are some success stories:

“I am extremely glad to have been mentored by Rica Roy. This mentorship initiative has been of great help to me. Through my mentoring sessions I have gained knowledge about the Chevening Scholarship as well as being taught about the media profession and the opportunities.

Rica ma’am is very helpful and humble. This mentoring opportunity is surely helping me shape my career and taking the right decisions for the future.”

– Sweta Gupta ( Mentor – Rica Roy)

“I am grateful for Bhanu Sir’s Chevening Mentorship. He has strengthened my sense of fortitude. The resources provided were indeed beneficial in improving my thought process and broadening my horizons. I was able to share my short and long term goals, as well as obtain insight on how to improve them. I was able to get a lot of knowledge. I learned to look at things objectively and to appreciate the basic things in life. This mentorship was not only beneficial to my academic career but also to my personal development. Bhanu Sir also put me in touch with his cohort for further mentoring.”

– Anna Anandita (Mentor – Bhanu Prasad)

Watch the discussion here.

Vital Voices Mentoring Walk

The virtual Vital Voices Mentoring Walk began with the introductory session which was held on 12th March.

The session was opened by Supreet K Singh, CEO, Red Dot Foundation, which was followed by the keynote speech which was given by Tamarind Murietta, Principal Commercial Officer, Commercial Service, U.S Consulate, Mumbai.

This was followed by an interactive session on “Challenging the Gender Bias” which was conducted by Chetna Mehrotra from Rangbhoomi Applied Theatre.

The mentors and mentees then had an opportunity to meet each other in breakout rooms.

After the introductory session, the mentors and mentees were put in touch with each other. Several pairs have already had one mentoring session.

Watch the introductory session here.

Spatial Audits for Safety in Delhi NCR

In collaboration with UN-Habitat and Her City organization, Red Dot Foundation is conducting public space assessments of 5 locations in Delhi/NCR. The assessment aims to strengthen local capacities in 5 sites in Delhi/NCR, India around the use of gender and age-sensitive smart technologies for urban planning and design, as well as leverage expertise to develop high-quality and evidence-based learning and outcomes. It is also supporting the implementation of SDGs and the New Urban Agenda locally in India but also has the ambition to stand as a good practice to inform national implementation.

Wazirabad nallah, Gurugram

Badshahpur corridor, Gurugram

Khichripur, East Delhi

Aravalli Biodiversity Park, Gurugram

Anath Road, Sector 18, Gurugram

We have started work in two locations and we have got 100 reports of violence on the Safecity platform.

Safe Campus, Phaltan 2021 – 22

The Safe Campus Project involved youth, faculty and stakeholders in creating safe campuses for children. It aimed to educate children, teachers and parents about cyber security, digital wellness, safe and unsafe touch, and how to fight against the abuse they might go through living in society. The project was being implemented in 209 schools in the Phaltan taluka of the Satara district in Maharashtra.

We explained to the Education Officer of Satara and the Block Education Officer of Phaltan the importance of having safe campuses in schools by sharing the baseline data (which reflected that 75% of students, teachers and guardians were unaware of the POCSO Act while 98% stressed the importance of having the safe campus project in educational institutions). 152 Young Girl Leaders (Safe Campus Ambassadors) have undergone capacity-building sessions and are now conducting sessions for peers, family and the community in the villages. The Safe Campus Ambassadors have not only become more confident in understanding the rights and safety but have been agents of change in their villages & schools. They have confidently advocated with the authorities to ensure their safety while building confidence in their parents to ensure that they can continue their education in a safe way. We also got featured in the media.

Safety Champion Campaign

The Safety Champion Campaign started once again on March 8, International Women’s Day. Close to 150 volunteers have gone through an orientation session and are currently speaking to their friends and families about gender-based violence and sexual harassment and reporting these incidents on the Safecity platform.

Season 2 of beliEVE – A Podcast on Aawaz.com

beliEVE Season 2 came to an end in March. Through this podcast series, we highlighted the stellar work of our guests which helps further the UN Sustainable Goals for 2030.

Check out the series where Rashmi Putcha, Women’s Health Coach and Founder and CEO of Inaari shares her views.

SafeCircle

SafeCircle is a safe listening circle for survivors of violence and trauma 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.
Read on to learn more about SafeCircle here.

If you would like to attend a SafeCircle please visit here. Sessions are held every fourth Friday of the month from 3 pm – 5 pm IST.

Intern Talks – Mushkan

“It has been a pleasure working in the organisation. The people here are so understanding and give you the space to explore your creative side, which is the best part. I planned on working here for 3 months ever since I joined in November ’21 and yet, here I am, still a part of it. Wouldn’t want it any other way!”

– Mushkan Jogani, Communications Intern

Key points to understand through data – March

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.

Report an incident on Safecity Platform

Download Safecity App on iOS Devices

Download Safecity App on Android Devices

Upcoming Events

Tweetchats and IG Lives during International Anti-Harassment Week (3rd April – 9th April)

4th April, 4 pm IST, IG Live with Point of View @povmumbai
4th April, 8:30 pm IST, Tweetchat with Sayfty @SayftyCom
5th April, 4:30 pm IST, IG live with Ungender @ungender.in
5th April, 9 pm IST, Tweetchat with Safetipin @safetipinapp
6th April, 4:00 pm IST, Tweetchat with Rashmi Putcha @RashmiPutcha
6th April, 7:30 pm IST, Tweetchat with Durga India, @DurgaIndia1
7th April, 7:00 pm IST, Tweetchat with CSR @CSR_India
7th April, 7:30 pm IST, IG live with Safetipin @safetipinapp
7th April, 8:30 pm IST, Tweetchat with Girl Power Talk @girlpowertalk
8th April, 9 pm IST Tweetchat on Twitter at @TheSafecityApp with Chaitanya Mukund @chaitanyamukund

Ongoing Projects

Queer Hifazat Project
Cyber Safety supported by the U.S. Embassy, India and U.S. Consulate General, Hyderabad
Safe Maharashtra in Mumbai, Pune and Satara
LGBTQI+ Inclusion at Workplaces
Community Health Workers Trainings with HDFC
Community Health Workers Trainings with City of Stuttgart
Mentoring on Personal Leadership with Young Girls and Women with Adventures of the Mind