Safecity Monthly Updates: November 2019

Safecity is growing exponentially and we’re constantly striving hard to translate our vision of equality and emancipation to reality. Because we don’t want you to miss out on any of our work, we’ve decided to put together a monthly column to tell all you about what we’ve been up to. You can sign up for our newsletter here.

Urban Thinkers Campus- Safe Public Spaces

Red Dot Foundation hosted a 2 day long Urban Thinkers Campus on November 25-26, wherein participants from Civil Society, Government Agencies and the Corporate sector donned their thinking caps to deliberate on innovative and inclusive solutions for “Safe Public Spaces”. From analysing various case studies to recommending solutions during the innovation labs, the two days were filled with participatory multi-sectoral perspectives. The full report will be out soon!

Youth Innovation Challenge  2019

Parallel to the UTC, we hosted the Youth Innovation Challenge which is a three-month social incubator for youth on Safe Public Spaces. On November 29, 2019, the 09 finalist teams made a final pitch of their local community-based solutions for Safe Public Spaces. Over the three months, the teams (who were from different cities in India) went through an offsite at Magic Bus Learning Centre in Karjat, attended seven master class webinars and were mentored by experts. We are grateful to the 17 mentors and 15 jury members who helped us shortlist the teams and finalise the winners. In our opinion, all the teams were winners as they worked hard to implement their ideas into working prototypes which were well thought out. The top three winners and their innovations are:

• Team NCR mates – Data-driven Algorithm for College Campus Safety
• Team Nox – Nightly Community Activity to Encourage Women in Public Spaces
• Team One – Urban Infrastructure for Toilets for Transgenders

Red Dot Foundation turns 5!

Red Dot Foundation completed 5 years on November 03, 2019. It has been 5 years of working towards making our public spaces safer and fighting sexual violence. A heartfelt thank you for all your support and love throughout these years.

You can support our movement further by doing these 3 (incredibly simple) things:

• Download our app and share your story anonymously- Android, iOS
• Organise a workshop in your community
• Send us your Be Your Own Superhero story

Safe Campus Program- Red Dot Foundation with The Government of Canada

In keeping with our mission & constant endeavour to create Safe Public Spaces and to spread awareness & advocate gender equality & prevention of sexual violence; in the month of September, Red Dot Foundation together with the Government of Canada commenced a six month ‘Safe Campus Program’ with 20 colleges in Maharashtra.

Five students have been identified from each college to be ‘Youth Leaders’.  We have begun conducting 3-day workshops for the students to help them be peer educators. These workshops will focus on sensitising them, particularly on the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Faculty and administration will also be trained.

Our Global newsletter

Do subscribe to the Red Dot Foundation Global newsletter if you would like specific news featuring our work across the globe.

Click here to read. Do subscribe if interested.

POCSO Awareness Run Campaign

On November 17, our Youth Outreach Officer, Jyoti Goyal represented Safecity at the “POCSO Awareness Run” event at Cannaught Place, Delhi. It was a campaign to advocate for “a society free from sexual violence”. We also attended the flag off meeting for the campaign which was held at ex-President Pranab Mukherjee’s residence.

Updates from Delhi

On November 13, Safecity’s Youth Outreach Officers, Jyoti Goyal and Kajal Antil conducted a workshop at Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, Delhi in order to spread awareness regarding Sexual Harassment in the current times. The workshop was supported by the Women Development Cell of the college. Topics like Sexual Harassment, Gender-based Violence, Laws against Sexual Abuse, etc were discussed.

Updates from Pune

Our Youth Outreach Officer, Mona More, conducted a POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) Workshop on November 18 near Karale Class for an Anganwadi of 35 women, aged from 15 to 65 years. The women were taught how to use the Safecity App, how to report cases of sexual harassment and how to mark unsafe public spaces on the Safecity map.

16 Days of Activism

Our Youth Outreach Officer, Jyoti Goyal conducted a SAFETY AUDIT at four public spaces in Delhi on November 28 in order to commemorate the 16 Days of Activism. 

Various aspects of safety were checked by our team which included the availability of toilets, visibility of toilets, presence of street lights, availability of public and private transport, presence of Police Booths, CCTV cameras, etc.

Please also read these articles by ElsaMarie DSilva on #16Days

• Why we still need Campaigns like the 16 days of activism?
• Five actions you can take to end Gender-Based Violence.

Be Your Own Superhero

This campaign is to celebrate your story. It’s to celebrate the countless stories that collectively give us hope to #RiseTogether and fight against injustice. If you’re someone who has stood up for a friend who was being harassed, we would love to hear your heroic story too!

#BeYourOwnSuperhero today and share your story of action against harassment with us- bit.ly/BeYourOwnSuperhero

Girl Fund Campaign

We have been selected by Global Giving to be part of their Girl Fund Campaign. We appreciate every generous donation. Even    Rs 500 or $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/