Updated May 02, 2020
Safecity - a crowdmap for sexual and gender based violence
http://safecity.in
Elsamarie Dsilva
Safecity aims to make cities safer by encouraging equal access to public spaces for everyone especially women, through the use of crowdsourced data, community engagement and institutional accountability.
We are a Trip Advisor for sexual violence in public spaces.
Stage 4: Transition to Scale
We are looking to scale our work in India and abroad.
Problem
Sexual violence is a global pandemic which holds women and girls back from achieving their potential. There is lack of data regarding this issue because of the culture of silence. This makes the issue invisible and further promotes unconscious bias and stereotypes.
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Solution
Safecity is a platform that crowdsources personal stories of sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces. This data which maybe anonymous, gets aggregated as hot spots on a map indicating trends at a local level. The idea is to make this data useful for individuals, local communities and local administration to identify factors that causes behaviour that leads to violence and work on strategies for solutions.
Target Beneficiaries
Our main target audience are women/girls who are victims of sexual harassment due to a patriarchal culture. We encourage them to share their stories, learn that they are not alone as "victims", feel empowered to stand up for themselves and confront the perpetrator.
We also work with men and boys and institutions helping them to be part of the solution.
Mission and Vision
Our main objective is to:
- Create awareness on sexual harassment and abuse and get women and other disadvantaged communities to break their silence and report their personal experiences.
- Collate this information to showcase location based trends.
- Make this information available and useful for individuals, local communities and local administration to solve the problem at the local level.
Competitive Advantage
We are creating a new data set which currently does not exist. Perception of the police's insensitivity as well as cultural backlash deters people from reporting. They feel more comfortable using our platform and this is seen by reports from over 20 years ago.
By representing the information thus collected on a map as hotspots, we are moving the focus away from the "victim" to the location and people can view the issue with a different lens. Today we make choices for pretty much everything based on reviews - books, movies, restaurants, hotels but we have nothing for personal safety.
Usually NGOs focus on solving individual cases and other apps are SOS apps. But we work on historical experiences to identify future trends and patterns. With this information we work on neighbourhood solutions involving communities to drive them.
Planned Goals and Milestones
Scaling Safecity to 3 new cities in India and 2 new countries.
| Funding Goal | 500,000 | |
| Projected Cumulative Lives Impacted | 500 | |
| Recruit | 1 Technologist, 1 Management, 2 Project team members |
Milestone
Apr 2020
New Product Or Service
COVID19 related resources and Domestic Violence
Jan 2019
New Country Implemented In
Malaysia
Dec 2018
New Country Implemented In
Kenya
May 2015
Oct 2014
New Country Implemented In
Nepal
Oct 2014
New Country Implemented In
Kenya
