Safecity Monthly Updates – September 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 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
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.
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.
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. The 12 finalist teams (chosen out of 108 entries received) participating in the Youth Innovation Challenge have been extremely busy working on their projects.
They have also been attending Masterclasses on a variety of subjects that have been conducted by experts in their fields. Masterclasses conducted in the month of September:
1st September – Masterclass on Marketing conducted by Mr. Girish Nair – Founder, Travel Spends.
Mr. Nair shared with the participants the importance of a clear and crisp pitch and the ideal length of a presentation. He also shared his insights with individual teams on creative ways to market their individual ideas.
7th September – Masterclass on Her City toolkit conducted by Ms. Elin Andersdotter Fabre- Her City Manager, UN-Habitat.
A wonderful class with real-life examples of cities designed by women for women, keeping in mind the comfort and safety of all genders.
18th September – Masterclass on Finance conducted by Mr. Mahadeo Raikar – CFO, TATA Capital.
Mr. Raikar made ‘Finance’ – a topic often considered drab – very exciting and interesting. His passion for the subject inspired the participants and made it a very interactive and engaging session.
22nd September – Masterclass on Climate Justice conducted by Ms. Arpita Bhagat – Campaign Manager, Purpose.
Ms. Bhagat simplified the otherwise complex topic of Climate Justice and helped the participants dig deeper to look beyond the surface of several issues. She was able to help answer many questions that the participants had about their projects.
Here’s what some of the YIC Teams have to say about the various Masterclasses held to date.
The teams have been meeting regularly with their individual mentors and fine-tuning their projects with a view to having a functioning/ tested prototype by the 22nd of October.
Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC)
On 14 and 15 September, Red Dot Foundation hosted a two day Urban Thinkers Campus on the theme – Climate Action for Resilient Communities by and for women. This event was co-hosted with NIUA, The Urban Vision and Project Mumbai.
Day 1 Theme: Gender and Mobility
The theme was focussed on exploring the gendered nature of mobility and its subsequent impact on the overall climate crisis. The idea was to bring together diverse stakeholders and facilitate a meaningful discussion towards mapping the mobility gap and sharing innovative strategies to make cities more accessible, affordable and safer for all genders. Additionally, the idea was to brainstorm on ways to make mass transportation more inclusive and sensitive to multifold needs so that people, especially from marginalized genders, can easily access it and opt for it over private transport.
Check out the video and Padlet discussion.
Day 2 Theme: Gender, Water and Waste Management
The theme unpacked the intricate relation between women and natural resources, their role related to collecting, storing and managing it juxtaposed with their final access and control over it. Moreover, since women are considered to be the primary caregivers, responsible for household work, they automatically assume the charge of waste management and disposal.
This theme revolves around the politics surrounding waste generation, management and disposal. Often people from the most marginalized sections of the society, generating the least amounts of waste, are held responsible for its management and disposal.
The idea is to engage in meaningful discussion and closely look at how climate change – resulting from escalated waste generation and improper disposal along with the water crisis, is disproportionality impacting women, especially those from vulnerable communities.
Check out the video and Padlet discussion.
Art for Healing
Red Dot Foundation and Mosaics & Circles conducted 4 online specially designed sessions of Art for Healing workshops supported by the Federal Consulate General of Germany in Mumbai on 2, 3, 16 & 17 September.
Excited participants write back:
“The breathing exercises, feeling of being heard, empathetic listening.”
“I especially enjoyed the body awareness exercises that were conducted. It helped me loosen up.”
“I really liked dancing with Christa. And the meditation with Supreet. Helped me feel super calm relaxed and loose.”
“Engaging with the group who shared experiences and feelings. expressing ourselves in different forms like dance, drawing etc.”
“For the first time ever, I vocalised and expressed my experience. This was the most helpful aspect of these sessions. Vocalising it once gives me the confidence to be able to do it again.”
“The art for healing sessions were increasingly helpful, I openly talked about my childhood experience with sexual harassment. Visualising and drawing the incident as an activity really helped me come to terms with an old childhood incident, likewise listening to other people share their stories, made it easier for me to open up and come to terms with the similar incidents of sexual harassment that had occurred in my life.”
“The safety that was created and the concern that was shown about our feelings was magical.”
“The safe space we cultivated was very sacred for me. Getting to meet people who wanted to talk about similar topics was great. Dancing, meditation, and drawing helped me connect to my inner self. I liked the community we had!”
“The “Art for Healing” session is one of the positive improvements in my life. I have learnt many new things to keep myself away from depression. The activities which we had done were so creative and interesting that I had also shared them with my friends. Thank you so much for such wonderful sessions.”
Safe Campus Project, Phaltan, Satara
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.
On 23rd September the RDF team met with the Education Officer and CO in Satara to promote our work on creating safe campuses and empowering young girl leaders to facilitate the same.
The officials were very supportive and well aware of the work of RDF. They have extended their full support and with their assistance, we will be able to create safe campuses in many more areas.
The RDF team also met with the Young Girl Leaders, teachers and their parents. They shared their views on how the program has empowered them with leadership skills, technology skills, communication skills, etc. thereby making them feel more confident and knowledgeable.
Safety Champion Campaign II – September 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 have successfully run two phases of this campaign in 2021 in the months of March and July. We are glad to share that we have received tremendous support and participation from the youth of India through which we have collected more than 15,000 reports of harassment and violence from various locations. We received encouraging feedback from candidates wherein they shared that their knowledge about sexual harassment has increased significantly because of this campaign and they feel more comfortable now speaking about taboo topics like sexual violence and domestic violence.
– Amara Arora
– A poster made by Unnati Anand
– Piyush Sharma
Child Safety Campaign
On the heels of a successful campaign – Safety Champion which ran for 6 months and brought in a thunderous response of over 5,000 reports from remote corners of India, the Middle East, South East Asia and USA, Safecity kickstarted a new project this month, Child Safety Campaign.
The campaign is an initiative to empower young leaders to facilitate safe areas for children and parents while giving them a firsthand experience of leadership, communication and organisational skills. The campaign involves interaction with ten or more children and parents in the neighbourhood to highlight child safety issues and share their thoughts regarding safety and creating safe spaces for the children in the form of drawing/art/story/poetry.
We share some interesting feedback:
– Nirmiti Etambe
– Vaibhav Dwivedi
– Muskan Gulati
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.
If you would like to attend a SafeCircle please visit here.
Season 2 of beliEVE – a podcast on Aawaz.com
In the ongoing series, beliEVE season 2 turns the spotlight on the stellar work by our guests which helps further the UN Sustainable Goals for 2030. Our host, Elsa enjoys amplifying the voices of exceptional women and is an inspirational figure herself, having built the Safecity app, she is also the Founder of Red Dot Foundation, working to end gender-based violence in vulnerable communities across the globe.
Check out the series where Binu Verma, Director, Child Empowerment Foundation, India, Purnima Devi Barman, Wildlife Biologist, Dr. Mansie Iyer, Scientist, Educator, Non-Proliferation Specialist, USA, Dr. Anita Sengupta, Rocket Scientist & Space Exploration Veteran, USA, and Ms. Shweta Mangal, philanthropist and co-founder of Ziqitza Healthcare share their exciting journeys and thoughts here.
Intern Talks – Nishanthy
“I have been working as a Graphic Design Intern in Safecity since June 2021. This is my first ever internship and I’m happy that I did it with Safecity. Previously I had no experience in working as a graphic designer and was worried if this will affect the workflow but the team members were really helpful and friendly. With flexible timings, I was able to work here as well as manage my studies too. Several workshops and classes were conducted and I learned a lot in these three months. Safecity is doing a great job of bringing awareness to several topics that are being ignored in this society. I’m glad that I have contributed something to this. And forever grateful to the team who made this experience the best one.”
Key points to understand through data
Click here to see the Safecity Data Graphics for the month of September.
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
Check out our Annual Report for 2020-2021.
Upcoming Events
- 2 – 8 Oct Daan Utsav Campaign in collaboration with India Welfare Trust & Internshala.
- 22 Oct (5 – 7 pm IST) – Final Pitch of the Youth Innovation Challenge. Register here.
- 23 Oct (5 – 7 pm IST) – Final event of the Rural Digital Entrepreneurs Mentoring Program. Register here.
- 25 – 31 Oct – PanAcea: Asexuality Asia Conference 2021 in collaboration with IndianAces and HumansOfQueer. Register here.
- 25 Nov to 3 Dec – R U Safe? Design Challenge on making safer streets for everyone – Register here.
- Tweetchats every Friday at 9 pm IST on Twitter at @TheSafecityApp.
Ongoing Events
- Youth Innovation Challenge
- Safety Champion Campaign
- Child Safety Campaign
- Peer Mentoring Bootcamp with Rural Digital Entrepreneurs
- Safe Campus Project, Phaltan, Satara
- Community Champion Campaign