Safecity Monthly Updates : September 2018
Mar 15, 2019
Story
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.
Youth Innovation Challenge
The Youth Innovation Challenge, part of the Urban Thinkers Campus, is a social incubator designed to engage the youth of Mumbai to work on hyper-local, community based solutions to address Gender inclusive City Planning and its intersection with Mobility, Environment and Governance through a 4-month programme.
The finalists of the Youth Innovation Challenge had their second session at Godrej – The Trees in Vikhroli, Mumbai on 8th September. The sessions covered Finance, Gender and Technology, and Communications. Thank you to our partners Godrej – The Trees, Point of View, Tomorrow Makers and Oberoi Flight Kitchen. Read more about it here.
Here’s a glimpse at some of the pictures.
The final pitch competition will be held on 13 December at Dosti House at the US Consulate of Mumbai. This challenge is sponsored by Tata Capital, BMW Foundation, knowledge partner – US Consulate General, Mumbai and outreach partner – School Leaders Network India Foundation.
Selected for mBillionth- Mobile Initiatives
Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF)’s mBillionth Award South Asia recognises excellence in mobile innovations for development.
Red Dot Foundation (Safecity)’s film- Save the Boy Child- Save the Girls #BetaPadhao #BetiBachao on the Safecity mobile app has been short-listed for the #mBillionth2018 Awards by Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in Media & Entertainment category!
Partner at ‘Online Safety Summit’ by SheThePeople.TV
Safecity was one of the partners for the Online Safety Summit by SheThePeople on 29th September in Mumbai. Supreet K Singh, our Director and COO, was the moderator for the panel discussion on ‘Gender Abuse Online- Parameters, Triggers’. The panel consisted of Audrey D’mello of Majlis, Tara Kaushal – writer of Why Indian Men Rape and Dr. A. L. Sharada of Population First.
The panel unanimously agreed that we must continue to fight back – to unabashedly express ourselves online; and reclaim both physical and online spaces that men have tried to restrict us from entering.
Featured with 12 Famous Feminists
Our Founder, Elsa Dsilva, has been featured on WomensWeb as one of these 12 amazing women who are working hard to make a difference and better lives! You can read about all of them here.
Urban Thinkers Campus report
Red Dot Foundation (Safecity) was appointed by the UN Habitat to host the Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) in Mumbai. This event was also part sponsored by the Swedish Institute, post the Stockholm Gender Equality Forum. It is in partnership with Developmatrix, The Urban Vision, Tata Capital, ISDI, The US Consulate Mumbai, BMW Foundation.
The report of the Urban Thinkers Campus we co-hosted in Mumbai on 21-22nd June is finally here! You can read it here and send us your thoughts.
Character Day
Safecity celebrated CharacterDay 2018 in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Patna with different age groups- children, youth and adults. We spoke about strengths and weaknesses, the importance of kindness and people shared the best #advice they had received.
You can read more about it here.
World Suicide Prevention Day
On 10th September 2018, we invited people and organisations to ‘Be a Buddy’ and had a tweetchat at the end of the day with organisations working on suicide prevention in Mumbai and Pune.
You can read more about it here.
WorldPulse Featured Changemaker
We have been selected as a World Pulse Featured Changemaker for their upcoming Peace & Security Digital Event!
You can follow our work on our profile on WorldPulse too.
Updates from Patna
Naina Jha conducted an awareness workshop about sexual harassment for the students studying BBA in IIBM college, Patna on 2nd September, 2018. You can read more about it here.
Updates from Delhi
Titas Ghosh has been visiting communities in Delhi creating awareness about the different types of sexual harassment. Her latest workshop was with a youth group talking about child sexual abuse You can read more about it here.
Updates from Pune
Tania Fernandes conducted a gender-sensitization session with a group of children in NIBM Pune on 14th September 2018. You can read more about it here.
The children challenged stereotypical gender roles by working in the kitchen together. They made biscuit modaks keeping in tune with the festive season! The children were seen helping one another not only in making the modaks but cleaning up the place once the modaks were devoured.
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 Kartika Puri’s story on our blog here.
When we asked Kartika about her experience doing an internship with Safecity, this is what she had to say –
“It is in Safecity’s promotion of numerous practical solutions akin to these, which ensure women’s safety and teach them of their rights, that I have been given the unparalleled opportunity to not only merely express my politics but simultaneously act on it as well.”
We have several opportunities for you to volunteer and take action. Do check our website.
Outreach Partner- Sankalp Global Summit
Red Dot Foundation is pleased to be an Outreach Partner of the Sankalp Global Summit 2018. Please do register here- https://globalsummit2018.sankalpforum.com/ and avail of a 10% discount using this code – RDF10
Also if you have an innovation in the Livelihoods and Gender category, do apply to the Sankalp Awards here- https://globalsummit2018.sankalpforum.com/…/…/sankalp-awards
Reporting with Twitter
You can now report to our crowdmap via Twitter.
Tell us
– what happened
– where it happened
– where it happened
and use the hashtag #safecityreport
Updates from our DATA Analytics Team
This month was filled with challenges and we undertook some really interesting projects. We’ve been studying in detail the descriptions of our 11,200 reports as they add a lot of richness to our data set. Our weekly tweetchats have become our trademark. Hence, we’ve begun tracking their progress and looking for ways to make them better. We’ve also rolled out the first survey of the series on public safety which aims to understand people’s perception and expectations of the crime rate. The Youth Innovation Challenge is at its peak and we’re assessing its impact on the participants.
We are excited for October as we plan to roll out a survey about harassment at the workplace and are looking forward to learn from the results.
–Vihang Jumle (Lead Data Analyst)
Chaitali Bansal from the Data Analytics Team shares her experiences being a part of the team:
“I made my city a safe city by first knowing how unsafe it was with Safecity, looking into statistics, finding out the frequency of crimes at different places and trying to understand the cause behind high crime rates. I tried to finally put up some suggestions and the possible relationship between different factors and the crime rates.
My motivation to be a part of Safecity was to explore how can I contribute to the cause of women safety and a safer city in general. Being an IT student, I started with Data Analytics to know the reality, figures and draw inferences and later became part of Campus Ambassador Program to spread awareness. There is a lot to be done in making a city safer in this organization, one can work in any way they like as each and every bit counts.”
The team is looking for an SEO profile to assist us with improving Safecity’s indexing on search engines. Please feel free to drop an email to vihang@safecity.in or mailme.vihang@gmail.com if you’re interested.
TweetChats
Through our tweetchats, we are trying to facilitate important conversations around various issues related to gender in general and women’s issues in particular.
Check out September’s storified tweetchats here –Gender and Public Spaces, World Suicide Prevention Day, Women-Oriented Planning and Zoning Policy, Gender Stereotypes and Single Women in India.
Our campaign #BeYourOwnSuperhero celebrates people’s stories of valiance, courage and determination to break the silence and voice their rage against any form of harassment. You can have a look at some of their stories here. This campaign was designed by Tata Pro-Engage volunteer Radhika Shankar.
You can share your story and picture here: https://goo.gl/forms/LnwFByYspFeoUWgf2
That’s all for this month. Keep watching this space and we’ll keep you updated on all our work and exciting activities every month!
What’s in store for Safecity?
2 Oct- Facebook chat with Ms.Thynn Thynn Hliang, Yale World Fellow 2018 and former Country Director, Sierra Leone, Oxfam International
3 Oct– Tweetchat with Eirliani Abdul Rahman, Author of Survivors – Breaking the Silence around Child Sexual Abuse
11 Oct– Women, Peace & Security panel Discussion at Yale, Horchow Hall, 55 Hillhouse Ave.
17-18 Oct– Supreet K Singh will be the keynote speaker at the conference in Stockholm on ‘Crime and Fear in Public Spaces’
23-26 Oct – Supreet K Singh will be presenting Safecity at Global MIL, Kaunas, Lithuania
27 Oct– Eliciting Empathy- Exhibition of audio stories of sexual harassment, Jonathan Edwards College, Yale
Every Friday at 9 pm IST/ 1130 am EST join us for a tweetchat.
