Safecity Monthly Updates – June 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 neighborhoods. We can do this by sharing data about the experiences of others and making these stories available to everyone. 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.

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Results of our Mumbai Incubation Lab at the GDL re-Connect Summit

The city of Mumbai is often called the ‘city of dreams’ in popular culture. It is after all, India’s commercial hub and trading center by the Arabian Sea and home to Bollywood. One of the world’s richest municipalities, Mumbai is also home to the world’s largest slum areas, where communities experience gender violence, lack of access to sanitation, poor housing, among other problems.

Hosted by Red Dot Foundation, the Mumbai Lab titled “Impact of Urban Design on Inclusive Cities: Intersections and Crossroads” aimed to investigate the nature of the interconnected inequalities to develop a framework of indicators and campaigns for building an inclusive and safer city, for all its citizens, especially those who are socio-economically vulnerable. The first part of the lab has now been concluded. You can check the report here.

Click here to watch the session.

Covid Relief Campaigns

India COVID-19 Relief: Help Dhanbad With O2 Concentrators

India COVID-19 Relief Help Dhanbad With O2 Concentrators

Red Dot Foundation along with the Alumni of Dhanbad, Jharkhand are raising funds for oxygen concentrators. Jharkhand has one of the lowest doctor patient ratios. We need your help to support the needs on the ground. With current funds available we were able to send four concentrators to Jharkhand. Do support this campaign.

Donate here.

To learn more.

Support Food Rations And Other Relief For COVID19 Survivors

Covid19 has pushed many people into poverty. We have supported over 300 families with one month’s dry food rations and sanitary kits in the last month in Delhi NCR (with Krantii) and in Goa (Mark DSilva, Andrea Crizzle and Tania Echaporia). We thank Delfinos for being great partners and giving us food at discounted prices. In Saligao we have been distributing food through the Sisters of Canossa Convent.

We thank you for your support during this time of crisis. All of us are in this together. We will band together and pull through this together.

Donate here.

Community Champion Campaign

Community Champion Campaign is an initiative to engage youth in making public spaces safer by designing action-oriented programs for the community to address safety issues. Looking at the enthusiastic response of our previous online campaign, we have designed this campaign to take a step further in making the community safer.

Aims of the campaign –

To engage youth in making community safe
To figure out location-based trend or issues in safety of the community
To use the data of Safecity app in the community
To find community-driven solutions to safety issues of the community

In the month of June, we did two orientation sessions of this campaign in which 16 participants joined. All those people who complete this internship will get a chance to present their work on World Habitat Day.

Safe Campus Program 2021-22

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 Satara District of Maharashtra State of India.

Girl students from various schools and colleges have been selected to act as Young Girl Leaders as agents of change in enhancing child safety in campuses.

Numerous online and offline meetings with the government authorities for necessary permissions to work with the government educational institutions as also calls and visits to the Education Officer, Zilla Parishad Officer, etc, were coordinated by our local representative Gauri Sonawne to get approval for our project.

This year, we are working with the Young Girl Leaders of Phaltan Taluka in Satara District of Maharashtra State of India, which we are planning to expand.

Safety Champion Campaign II

The 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. This campaign aims to engage youth in recognising the various forms of sexual and gender-based violence, understanding the socio-cultural contexts in which it happens and facilitating safe spaces in their families and communities by initiating dialogue and discussion to further awareness amongst people on this important topic. We successfully engaged more than 400 youth all over India to attend our workshop and then to collect reports of various crimes on our Safecity platform.

Following the enthusiastic response of this campaign in March 2021, we re-initiated the second phase of the campaign in June. We received applications from over 3500 people to join this campaign. So far, we have conducted 7 orientation sessions in which we introduced the Safecity app and these sessions were attended by over 1100 people. Currently, we have more than 400 active youth working under this campaign.

Many young people who completed this internship have confirmed that their knowledge on sexual harassment, personal safety and creation of safe spaces has enhanced significantly due to this campaign.

Campus Ambassador Program

The Campus Ambassador Program is a safe campus initiative by Safecity. It seeks to engage college-age students and empower them to become leaders, advocates, and agents for change. Participants learn about leadership and communication skills while also providing valuable service in their communities.

We have 45 youth from around the country working with us to promote public safety amongst their friends, family, and peers. As a result, more than 300 people attended our recent events. We continue to support and guide them through the program.

Apply for Campus Ambassador

SafeCircle

SafeCircle is a safe listening circle for survivors of violence and abuse to find support. During COVID19 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.

Click here to attend SafeCircle

Recently from 19th April to 10th May 2021, we hosted the SafeCircle Facilitator’s Training Program in partnership with the German Federal Foreign Office’s Global Diplomacy Lab. We had 15 participants attend the training program and we are thrilled to certify 13 facilitators who will conduct SafeCircles in their communities in English and Hindi.

Anna Anandita shares her experience, “Safecity Facilitators Course was a beautiful journey in itself. I met so many amazing people. I acquired a lot of insight into abilities I’ve used my entire life but only seldom implemented or practised. I’ve grown as a person as a result of the course. Overall, this course helped me recognise the importance of coming together and sharing, sparking a positive spark in me. I’d like to express my gratitude for Supreet Ma’am’s ability to relate the examples and real-life problems in such a way that I was able to dive deep into practicalities.”

Intern Talks – Palak

Hi, I’m Palak, a first-year Economics student at the University of Delhi. This year, with the ongoing second wave of the pandemic, has been very emotionally draining for me. I haven’t even had a glimpse of the building of my college, while I’m almost about to be done with my first year. It’s been reading and writing that kept me going every day during this period. Two months ago, being a freshman, I knew nothing about internships when I started as a blogging intern at Safecity, Red Dot Foundation. And now, after writing several blogs, I can say that the experience has been nothing short of amazing. My ability to express myself has been improving as a result of constant feedback from experienced mentors. I always read and write fictional works, it is through this internship that I got to explore concrete issues and analyze them. For every blog, I do research and try to educate myself on societal issues before commenting on them. And through my blog, I only hope that I get to spread that awareness to a wider audience.

Key points to understand through data

Safecity Data Graphics

Check out the Data graphics

Safecity Reporting Platform

Safecity is a platform as a service product that powers communities, police and city governments to prevent sexual harassment and other crimes in public and private spaces. Our technology stack collects and analyses crowdsourced, anonymous reports of sexual harassment, identifying patterns and key insights. This data enables citizens, researchers and policymakers to create safer spaces by: