Safecity Monthly Updates: October 2019

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

Giving Week- Daan Utsav

In collaboration with Reliance Metro One, Safecity participated in the Daan Utsav, by meeting metro commuters at the Andheri Bank of Baroda Metro station to create awareness about sexual harassment and abuse. Commuters were encouraged to use the Safecity App to break their silence and report their personal experiences of any kind of harassment they encountered.

Our award-winning film, Nirbhaya Mai, Asifa Mai was played for two weeks on Andheri Metro Station to spread awareness about sexual harassment.

Make Change Happen

Our Founder, Elsa Dsilva has been featured as one of the inspiring changemakers in the online course, ‘Make Change Happen’. Make Change Happen is a free online course aimed at informing, inspiring and connecting activists and changemakers to bring about positive social, political, and environmental change.
It was developed by Oxfam India in partnership with The Open University and is hosted on FutureLearn. The course begins in October and is now open for registrations.

PeaceCon 2019 Alliance for Peacebuilding, Washington DC

Our Founder, Elsa Dsilva spoke along with Holly Kearl, Giselle Lopez, Mikel Maron and Betsy Bramon at the PeaceCon 2019 on October 03. The topic of discussion was New Frontiers in Peace Building where various technologies and practical approaches to conflict resolution and violence prevention were addressed.

Finding Tech Solutions to fight Sexual Violence with Omdena through an AI Challenge

Safecity partnered with Omdena to build a solution for creating more awareness to prevent violent acts, using satellite imagery to identify risk areas. It was an interesting learning experience for the 32 A1 engineers from 14 countries. Rudradeb Mitra, founder of Omdena said, “In the past 6 months, Omdena did a lot of interesting challenges but this one is my favourite. We built an AI model to provide a person reporting sexual harassment the safest route out, in real-time, based on past harassment incidences and nearby safe spots (Hospitals, Police stations, Metro stations etc). This solution will be implemented in the current app of Safecity India. I can imagine this work can help so many people.” Feel free to read the article.

You can read more about our experience on the challenge here.

BMW Foundation Berlin Global Forum

Our Founder Elsa DSilva attended the Berlin Global Forum on 25 Oct and presented at the break out session The Female View. The session was aimed at bringing a gender lens and practical approaches from the field in solving social issues.

TwentyThirty.com presented by BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt published an article that describes how Safecity is making cities safe.

How This Woman Is Making Cities Safe

Updates from Delhi 

Jyoti Goyal from Safecity took a session on safe/unsafe touch with 13 children from TARA NGOs in Delhi. These children came from various backgrounds in life, where they had been vulnerable to violence and crimes. The children were taught about various concepts like –  My body my choice, having the courage to say NO, safe and unsafe touch, safe and unsafe secrets, trusting people , what to do if you feel danger or insecure, etc.

Updates from Pune

Safecity celebrated Navratri with the Kasewadi Community, in Pune on October 5 by performing a skit about Sexual Harassment and its impact on the life of the survivor.

Safecity Emerging Leaders

Safecity is celebrating the journey of people who have emerged as leaders as our campaigns progressed in their communities through our blog series “Safecity Emerging Leaders”. Read the inspiring stories of these individuals who are passionate about making their neighbourhoods safer with Safecity and have taken action in their own special ways.

Read this month’s Emerging Leader Anjana Priya J. R.’s story on our blog here.

When we asked about her experience doing an internship with Safecity, this is what Anjana had to say –

“For a long time,  I was searching for a platform where I could voice out my opinions without any sort of restrictions. I’m elated to say that Safecity has provided me with that opportunity. Interning at Safecity has not only provided me with an incredible space to write about concerning matters but also taught me how to structure articles in a way that’s both informative and reader-friendly. I am hopeful that I can continue to write for such a cause and be a part of the change we wish to see in our society. I thank Safecity for this inspiring journey!“

We have several opportunities for you to volunteer and take action. Do check our website.

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

Our Global newsletter

Do subscribe to our Red Dot Foundation Global international newsletter! We will be featuring our work across the globe in these newsletters.

Click here to read. Do subscribe if interested.

Girl Fund Campaign

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