Safecity aims at making our cities safer for every citizen. It is rigorously working towards the fulfillment of this cause by empowerment through data. By reporting and sharing your story, one can help and aware others through this platform. The data collected at Safecity reporting platform also ensures help for our local governing and authoritative bodies in regulating violent crimes in our cities in both public and private spaces.

Safecity Reporting Platform

The data with Safecity is gathered and analyzed, crowd-sourced, confidential accounts of violent crimes, which helps in recognizing the identity trends and key insights into the issue. It ensures transparency and public accountability which aids in enhancing policy and tactical precision with data-driven insights. This data technology also helps individual bodies, researchers, policy makers and related institutions working towards this cause or are related to it, in implementing policies and schemes for the cause. Through sharing stories or sending a report anonymously, one can help create safer spaces for them and others.

Share and empower through SAFECITY.

We are grateful to our partners at The Data Duck and Vital Voices for their invaluable support.

Report an incident on Safecity Platform

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Elsa’s Thought Leadership Inspires

Featured 12th among YourStory’s 100 digital Influencers

With 2020 being a year of unprecedented crisis, digital technology has become all the more prominent. Recently, Founder and CEO of Red Dot Foundation (Safecity), Elsa Marie D’Silva was featured in YourStory’s 100 digital influencers of 2020.

ElsaMarie is a social entrepreneur with 20 years of experience as an aviation professional. Aiming to bring about change in fields concerning women and youth empowerment, sexual and gender-based violence she switched career tracks in 2013 and founded Safecity. Under her leadership, this platform has become the largest crowd map in India and abroad.

Her work and writings on issues of women’s safety, gender-based violence have been featured on CNN, BBC, Huffington Post and many more. Elsa is also a 2020 Gratitude Network Fellow & 2019 International Women’s Forum Fellow, 2019 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow, 2018 Yale World Fellow, 2017 Stanford Draper Hills Summer School Fellow, 2017 Chevening Gurukul Fellow at Oxford University, 2016 Rotary Peace Fellow, 2015 Aspen New Voices Fellow, 2014 Vital Voices Lead Fellow, an alumna of the Swedish Institute (2012) and the US Department of State’s Fortune Programme (2016), and a participant of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2016. You can read her articles on www.elsamariedsilva.com

Book Release - The Demographic Dividend and the Power of Youth: Voices from the Global Diplomacy Lab

by Eirliani Abdul Rahman (Editor), Elsamarie D’silva (Editor & Author), Sonja Peteranderl (Editor & Author)

The Demographic Dividend and the Power of Youth: Voices from the Global Diplomacy Lab expected in February 2021 is an anthology of articles and essays from around the world. From the voices of the Global Diplomacy Lab to external contributors, the book focuses on the demographic dividend. The demographic dividend as defined by UNFPA is the economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population’s age structure, mainly when the share of the working-age population is larger than the non-working-age share of the population.

Edited by ElsaMarie D’Silva along with Eirliani A Rahman and Sonja Peteranderl, this highlights the role of government and institutions, explains how to take advantage of the demographic dividend and spotlights solutions. The book has garnered enthusiastic reviews, citing its value for governments, researchers and scholars. Emphasizing on its use of unconventional case studies, Elizabeth Adekunle remarks that it can even help a layman understand the importance of youth in relation to the demographic dividend.

This compilation of essays amalgamates diverse voices across the globe to provide a more comprehensive and insightful perspective of the demographic dividend, the challenges and solutions and what can be done to harness it.

Get your copy here:

Civil Society Declaration

In February 2021 the United Nations Commission for Social Development will focus on “A Socially just transition towards sustainable development: the role of digital technologies on social development and well-being of all”, a crucial and relevant theme in the context of the global pandemic.

The Red Dot Foundation is an integral part of the NGO Committee for Social Development, and are pleased to share with you our Civil Society Declaration, the first of its kind to be open to public endorsements because of the specially trying times we are going through as a global human community.

Save the Date - Anti Street Harassment Week 11-17 April

Red Dot Foundation and Stop Street Harassment are excited to invite you to join us in speaking out against street harassment during our 11th year of action, April 11-17, 2021. Express your interest here.

Safely Take Action

We imagine much of the world will still be practicing social distancing and even quarantining in April and so we encourage you to engage in online action (and use the hashtag #StopStreetHarassment) or, if it’s safe to do so, take small offline actions, like go with a friend or two to chalk on sidewalks or post flyers in your community.

Here are two other examples of how to be involved, and we’ll share more in the coming weeks:

1. Online Training

L’Oréal Paris has partnered with the expert NGO Hollaback! to launch STAND UP AGAINST STREET HARASSMENT: a training program to help people safely intervene if they witness or experience street harassment. As part of the International Anti-Street Harassment Week, help combat street harassment by taking the training program on standup-international.com, and then, share the word about the training in April.

2. COVID-19 Stories

We know that street harassment continues to be an issue, but it’s a problem that is getting a lot of attention right now. You could collect and share online COVID-19-related stories from your community to document the problem and raise awareness that it’s still a serious issue that many people are facing.

Share Your Ideas

If you have ideas already, you can let us know what you’ll do by filling out this form, and you can let us know if you’d like to be listed on the website as a participating co-sponsor, stopstreetharassment@gmail.com.

#ImSpeaking2021 - Raising our voices summit

On 21st January, 47 speakers from 34 countries convened together for expert presentations and panel discussions. Various case studies were discussed centring around topics that enabled women globally to voice out on issues.

Elsa moderated the discussion on “ Harnessing technology for community”. The panel consisted of Hera Hussain, Founder of CHAYN (Pakistan), Karla Ruiz Cofino, Digital Strategist (Guatemala) and Tama Abdle Jaber, Founder & CEO at Palma Consulting (Jordan). Watch the recording here.

Cybersaathi - workshops on Prevention of Online Harassment

This month we conducted several online sessions for over 440+ school children from grades 7-12 in Western India on behalf of the US Consulate General of Mumbai. While there were many comments & views posted in the chats we had some who were courageous enough to vocalise their experiences so that the others could be made aware of the dangers on the cyber domain.

1. Comment - student:

When discussing ‘what should gender look like? Pink /blue or a spectrum of colours? One of the students wrote this in the chat box

‘I absolutely love, stand & support this session and I really wish more people spread awareness about stuff like this’.

2. Testimony - teacher:

I have always had an inclination towards true sayings, real life quotes etc. based on true life experiences, however I had an experience on facebook which I would like to share.

I received an ad. asking if interested to join Jay Shetty club. To know more ‘click n join’. I did not check the details due to lack of time & clicked to join. Checking FB was done occasionally till I realised I was receiving messages from strangers on Messenger. They would ask for friend requests which I wasn’t very comfortable with. After researching I discovered that the group I had joined was a dating club. I began blocking these strangers on Messenger and deleted the club. Luckily after deleting that club I haven’t received any messages as such.

But after this experience I’ve never joined any unknown resources and have been very careful for security reasons.

Had I attended a session like ‘Cybersaathi’ earlier I would have been aware of such fake sites. Yet, I am happy to have the opportunity to do so now, as I had a platform to raise & share my experience.

I wish the Cybersaathi team could reach out to all school students who are exposed to social media and who aren’t aware of the consequences.

Thank you Cybersaathi for making the students aware about Cyber crimes and the do’s and don’ts while using technology.

3. Testimony - student:

Thank you for spreading useful information about online cybercrimes. I myself had an incident just a few weeks ago where I came face to face with a bully.

It was late at night around 11:30 pm. When me and my best friend were playing the famous online battle royale game call of duty mobile. The game required a squad of 4 to play and me and my friend were only 2 so we were paired up with random teammates. One of them was a starter so he split off from us and died quite early. The people remaining were me, my friend and the other unknown player. Once when we were encountering a squad he was shot down and unfortunately we were unable to help him. Me and my friend survived and carried on until we lost and made it to top 3. The next day I received a dm on my instagram account by the unknown player who messaged “You noob”. I replied “I don’t even know you. Who are you?” He kept constantly slanging and calling me a ‘bot’ or ‘noob’ etc. Now these two terms are really offensive to gamers. So, I got triggered and confronted him by asking him to meet me in a 1v1 match. He added me as a friend and we played 1v1. I won the match & reported his account both to the call of duty community and Instagram.

This Cybersaathi session allowed me to share my experience and also made me realise how foolish i was to straight up challenge the person. I mean what if I had lost that match? Rather than going through all this I should have directly reported the account. Do not repeat my mistake. Please stay away from online strangers. And probably avoid fighting with your own teammates in a game.

We at Red Dot Foundation & CyberSaathi Foundation, are working towards extending this workshop to ‘ALL’ or at least maximize the number of students, faculty & parents to attend. We can only do this through your support & connectivity to all your contacts especially to those who have children who could speak to their schools/colleges on the need & benefits of the Pro Bono, CyberSaathi workshops that we are offering.

Safecircle - a peer listening and empathy circle for survivors

SafeCircle is an initiative towards empowering our survivors of violence through constant encouragement and providing them with a platform to share their experience. Over the last 7 months, SafeCircle has helped over 25 survivors of violence and harassment regularly to build resilience. We are nurturing SafeCircle as a platform for our survivors to find help, report and speak up against the acts of violence and abuse. Our safe haven also enables the survivors to engage with the survivor community and learn various ways to deal with violence, facilitated by Supreet K Singh.

If you would like to support SafeCircle please visit here.

Intern Talks - What’s up 2021!

Here’s Prateeti, our social media intern, sharing her thoughts and plan of action for 2021.

“Entering a new year seemed a little different this time in the time of a pandemic. 2021 brings us a new hope of a vaccine to beat the virus with an overwhelming feeling of hope and the return of normalcy and stability in all of our lives. I believe that this year, with its ups and downs will prove to be more challenging than 2020. As for me, the beginning of the year looks hopeful as an intern of Safecity, Red Dot Foundation. I wish to work towards ensuring gender equality and be more mindful of each day with the prolonging routine of cycling and walking more. While also being mindful of leading a more sustainable and minimalist way of life, I look forward to the new year as I would practice being more aware of both my mental and physical health along with my peers in my surrounding. I am also hopeful of taking more solo trips this year and writing more poetry. “

Emerging Leader - Swathi K

2020 was a rollercoaster ride. I was literally disheartened to miss out on the farewell and last days of my college life. Then as the lockdown unfurled it became necessary for me to find new ways to engage with people and do something that would be of some benefit to people. That’s how I started searching for opportunities for online volunteering in NGOs. I came across Safecity’s call for social media interns, I applied for it and got selected. I was deeply moved by Safecity’s idea of crowdsourcing data for women’s safety.

Now I’m completing around four months with Safecity’s social media team. It’s been a hugely rewarding journey in terms of knowledge. I wish to be a part of this family as long as possible, as long as I can safely juggle with my job and the duties here. I aspire that 2021 will be a better year for my career which started amidst the pandemic. And I hope this year Safecity and its ideas reach more people and positively affect more lives by ensuring safety and equality for everyone irrespective of their gender.

What's in store for February?

RDF is partnering with the Consulate General of Sweden in Mumbai at the Kalaghoda Fest 6-14 Feb 2021 on “Breaking Gender Stereotypes” – an online workshop for children.
RDF is hosting a panel Technology to Address Gender-Based/Sexual Violence at the Grace Hopper Celebration India 2021. Click here for details.
Elsa will be speaking at the High-level panel discussion on the priority theme of the 59th Session of the United Nations Commission for Social Development on 8th February 2021 at 3 pm ET.
Every Friday at 9 pm IST/ 10.30 am ET join us on Twitter @pinthecreep

Safecity Monthly Updates – January 2021