Emerging Leaders: Shibani Chakravorty

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.

Shibani Chakravorty is currently pursuing Psychology Honours from Delhi University. Writing, reading and photography are her main hobbies. While she loves experimenting with art and video-editing indoors,  she’s equally fond of new places and social events.

                                                      Emerging Leaders- Shibani Chakravorty

“If you need someone to give you a  logical reason that Olaf really exists, I’m your person. To find me, look for the one who purpose fully pierced emotions into an intellectual discourse of morals.

I’m Shibani, currently a Psychology undergraduate and a Safecity intern. I have an absorbing circle of interests which is permeable to newness. Some of the things I like to do are- reading, writing, sketching and photography/ videography. Getting familiar with different places and people fills my heart. Hopefully, in a few years I’ll be edified enough to significantly improve various community areas as much as they disturb me today.

When 2018 was almost over, I came across Safecity on Internshala. Initially, I was drawn to look up the position because I was particularly interested in Communications. Once I skimmed through the website and read about the work done here, I applied. My final decision to join was greatly influenced after the first telephonic interaction, which gave me a clear vision of the work and opportunities that would follow.

I’ve been associated with Safecity for over a month now. Involved in Communications and the the On-ground work, I’ve had the opportunity to understand its functioning online as well as offline. In Communications, I’ve been executing content to keep social media handles active and looking out for potential collaborations. In the initial weeks, I had researching and shortlisting responsibilities. The team was open to accept my fictional literary piece reflecting gender oppression as well. On ground, I have been involved in conducting and planning workshops. Whenever a significant day comes up I love how the team brainstorms ideas and carries out an activity, big or small, from scratch to end. On National Girl Child’s Day 2019, we decided to visit a girls’ orphanage in Old Delhi. We interacted with the kids there, attempting to inspire them to think why they’re proud to be girls, and what their ambitions are. It was an experience on its own, can’t be compared to any other. Later, I had the opportunity to put the clips together and create one coherent video of that visit. Recently, we had put up a stall in an Internship Fair at Delhi University, which was my first direct experience at such a thing. As a Campus Ambassador, I’ve formed a team of volunteers and am proceeding with various offline tasks with them.

Being engaged in these hustles, I’ve had diverse learnings. Communications teaches me the right ways to extend presence in this digital world, and how much it matters to hold regular dialogues with others on subjects of concern- something done here through Friday night tweetchats. Moreover, during chores of researching or shortlisting, a person works through truckloads of material at once. It’s important to know where to look and what to look for. This skill of mine develops a little bit more every time I get such a task.

On-ground work is perfectly honing my time and people management skills. It’s giving me full freedom and space to get creative and carry out events on my own. When we think of doing something directly in the physical context, our minds are forced to be sensitive towards all people in that context- how they might react/feel, and our own words, etc. Thus, it also makes me feel the status of the issue we’re working towards at a personal level.

In just a month and a half I have been able to do numerous productive things, meet amazing people, get inspired and step out of my boundaries. One thing I have sensed while working at Safecity is how graciously inclusive it is of ideas. It inspires me to keep going and exploring, and this is something I’m trying to instil into myself as a leader too.

To sum up, my experience at Safecity by far has been wholesome. I’m looking forward to the upcoming work.”