VIDEO: Safety in Women’s Mobility – Webinar

Women often encounter fear, sexual harassment, and insecurity while using public transport. This Trufi webinar explored digital safety solutions that aim to tackle these concerns and empower women to move freely within their communities. Or expert presenters were Ankita Kapoor, Assistant Program Manager at Safetipin, and Vaibhavi Rani Maske, Project and Outreach Manager at Red Dot Foundation-Safecity. After their presentations, Trufi’s Leonardo Gutierrez demonstrated how chatbots being developed by Trufi can be used to report public safety incidents.

Webinar Recording

Actionable Data for Responsive, Inclusive, Safe and Equitable Spaces

Addressing safety concerns is crucial for promoting equal access to public spaces and opportunities. Ankita Kapoor discussed Safetipin’s “sheRISES” framework – an acronym for Responsive, Inclusive, Safe, and Equitable Spaces. The framework helps cities evaluate their current practices and work towards creating policies and infrastructure for more equitable and inclusive urban environments.

Through the lens of sheRises, Safetipin provided recommendations to the city of Bogota, Colombia, regarding the placement of new lights, CCTV cameras, and bike stands. The city implemented these changes. “We observed that more women were utilizing public spaces,” she said. “Not only were they using public spaces more frequently, but they were also using bicycles and various modes of public transport for their daily mobility needs.”

Hyper-Local Solutions and Community Engagement

The Safecity platform collects data on gender-based violence incidents, including information about the specific locations where these incidents occur. By analyzing the data, Safecity has identified hotspots or areas with a high frequency of incidents, and developed creative community responses.

Vaibhavi Rani Maske recounted a story after conducting trainings and awareness sessions in one Indian neighborhood. Some of the participants, young girls, came forward and expressed their desire to paint the a mural on the wall near the bus stop. They came up with the idea of drawing huge eyes on the walls with the message in Hindi “Nobody likes it when they get stared at.” “That was enough for them to not only reclaim their space,” said Rani Maske, but it also sent a powerful message. “And all of this happened with the data that we found on Safecity.”

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Thanks to Trufi Volunteer Gabriel for editing and preparing the video.

Photo: Shawn Allen (CC BY 2.0)