For a Safer Future: Interview with Elsa Marie D'Silva, Founder & CEO of Safecity.in

  ElsaMarie D’Silva is currently the Founder & CEO of Red Dot Foundation (Safecity) which is a platform that crowdsources personal experiences of sexual violence and abuse in public spaces. Since Safecity started in Dec 2012, it has become the largest crowd map on the issue in India, Kenya, Cameroon and Nepal. Elsa is also currently a mentee of the US State Department’s Fortune Program and a fellow with Rotary Peace, Aspen New Voices and Vital Voices. She is listed as one of BBC Hindi’s 100 Women and has won Female Entrepreneur of the Year Award by Dusan Stojanovic (European Angel Investor of the Year 2013) and The Digital Woman Award in Social Impact by She The People.  She has penned articles that have appeared in CNN, Huffington Post, WIP amongst others. She has spoken about her work at the Aspen Ideas Festival and at TEDx MidAtlantic. Prior to Safecity, Elsa was in the aviation industry for 20 years where she worked with Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines. Her last portfolio was Vice President Network Planning & Charters where she oversaw the planning and implementation of 500 daily flights.

     Arguendo is honored to be featuring her interview.

Sourya (S): Could you give us a glace as to how your college days were like?

Elsa (E): My college days were quite boring. I was the model student who attended all her lectures, therefore nothing extraordinary stands out because I was quite studious. I chose to graduate in English Literature because I loved reading and understanding cultures, contexts and perspectives.

S: Was the aviation sector always something which had fascinated you as a child?

E: Aviation allowed and facilitated travel which always fascinated me as a child. I wanted to visit different countries, meet different people, and experience different things including food, history, architecture, museums, and nature. I wanted to travel the world and my conduit was the aviation industry.

S: You were the Vice President Network Planning & Charters, for Kingfisher airlines. What were the different challenges you faced breaking so many glass ceilings and how did you overcome them?

E: As you are aware, I started my career as a flight attendant and thereafter was selected to become a Flight Safety Instructor teaching pilots and cabin crew safety and emergency procedures. I was then selected for a fast track program that resulted in a job at strategy. I worked in Revenue Management, Pricing and finally Network Planning. At the time, I didn't think I was breaking any ceilings but just wanted to explore my own potential. I have always been open to opportunities believing that change is constant in life and one must meet it head on, taking on challenges with positivity. I upskilled myself along the way, constantly equipping myself with knowledge and skills needed to do my job effectively and efficiently. I am a quick learner, a team player and a great communicator which has helped me achieve my goals.

S: As the VP, did you ever face instances of mansplaining or instances where you were not taken seriously because of your gender, despite your obvious expertise in the matter?

E: Yes, of course, but at that time I didn't know the meaning of mansplaining. I had to work harder than my male colleagues to prove myself, along with getting my work recognized. But I persevered and persisted and the rest is history. I like to collaborate and am willing to work with people to find common ground.

S: What led you to start the Red Dot Foundation?

E: In December 2012, a young woman named Jyoti Singh was gang raped on a bus in Delhi. That incident was horrific and brutal and opened up the conversations on sexual violence in India. At the time, I was looking to make a switch to the social sector and looking to find a cause that I believed in. Many things lined up including meeting my co-founders, finding collaborators and having the time to take Safecity forward, as Kingfisher had just shut down and I had time to experiment with the idea. I believe that the safety of women and girls is paramount and safe public spaces are essential to one finding one’s potential. 

Safecity Gender sanitization workshops.

S: What was your initial vision and objective behind Safecity?

E: The initial vision and objective were to provide an online platform to document sexual violence in public spaces. But this was further refined to help people understand what amounts to sexual violence, how it impacts our lives and the use of crowdsourced data to find individual and local solutions and drive institutional accountability.

S: Please explain for our readers as to how does Safecity work? Is the identity of the victims’ safe when they report?

E: 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 cause behaviour that lead to violence and work on strategies for solutions.

Safecity consists of several ways that women/girls can connect with each other on the issue.

We are creating a new data set which does not exist currently. 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 through 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. We are creating this database which can be used in several ways.

1.      Crowdmap - Sharing of stories anonymously, aggregation of trends, notifications and alerts and offering solidarity through the comments section allows people to understand the "safety" landscape of an area and make the most informed decision for themselves. e.g. They can decide on the time of visit, a method of transport to use, if they need to be accompanied by someone or even what clothes to wear.

2.      Social media - We have a robust social media presence on Facebook and Twitter. Discussions and advocacy through tweet chats are held regularly by our volunteers. We also have a Writers Movement where bloggers contribute their posts.

3.      Data from our site - We send regular dashboards and monthly trends to partner NGOs in India and abroad and the police in Delhi, Mumbai and Goa.

4.      Missed call for those with no internet access. They can give a missed call on +91 9015 510 510 and our team calls them back for their story.

S: What kind of support/help does Safecity provide to victims who come forward?

E: We work on general trends and patterns which we help communities/NGOs understand to drive solutions. For individual assistance, we direct them to other organizations who provide legal and/or counseling help.

S: When you started it in 2012, would you have believed that in less than three years Safecity would become the largest crowd map on the issue in India, Kenya, Cameroon and Nepal?

E: No, we didn't, but it is not surprising given that sexual violence is a global pandemic. UN Women states that 1 in 3 women face some kind of sexual assault at least once in their lifetime. But in our experience, the statistic in India seems to be extremely high. A rape occurs every 20 minutes in India.
Yet most women and girls do not talk about this abuse for a multiple of reasons - fear of society, culture, victim blaming, fear of police, tedious formal procedures etc. As a result, women keep silent and this data is not captured anywhere but the perpetrator gets bolder over time and we accept it as part of our daily routine. This leads to under communication and under-reporting of the issue. If there are poor official statistics, the problem is not visible and is not a true representation of the actual problem. Therefore we need to break our silence and document every instance of harassment and abuse in public spaces so that we can find the most effective solutions at the neighborhood level.

S: What has been your proudest moment with respect to Safecity?

Elsa with Secretary Clintor

E: We have several proud moments. Especially when we do workshops and campaigns, women and girls share how our work has helped them return to school, confidently access public spaces, confidently interact with male members in society and confidently stand up for themselves. We have several stories that can be found in the Safecity blog section. 

My personal moment of glory was when I recently received the Vital Voices Global Leadership Award in the presence of my hero, Secretary Hillary Clinton.

S: At times, do you still miss the skies and your old job in the Aviation Sector?

E: No, I don't miss my previous job. I am on a plane often enough even in my current role. I do believe there is a time and place for everything and I had a great time in my previous career but my current one drives me at the moment. It is meaningful and satisfying.

S: What word of advice would you give to all those young women (and men) who are forced to curb their entrepreneurial spirit due to family pressure, society etc and are told that there are things that they cannot do because of their gender roles? 

E: My mantra is - Difficult is easy, Impossible just takes longer.

If you want to do something, work on it, plan for it, ask for help, be willing to learn and open to change and go for it. Sometimes, the journey is easy and often, it is not. Sometimes you take off very easily and often there are many barriers. But if your personal vision is clear, keep at it. 

Read more »

Interview with Vandita Morarka: Policy & Legal Officer, Safecity & Founder PenPal Inc.

Q) The most obvious question first, did you choose law or did it choose you?

I can truly say Law chose me. I have single-mindedly wanted to pursue Law in one of its varied forms as a career option from as far back as I can remember.

Q) You have been involved with numerous initiatives and organizations throughout your law school life. How do you balance the already hectic law school life with your other activities?

I find that being involved with other organizations and initiatives helps me streamline and focus better when it comes to Law school. In terms of balancing, on most days it’s touch and go. But I think its manageable if it’s truly what you want to be doing

Vandita (Center) with participants of a Gender Workshop in Ryan,
Goregaon

 since if you’re dragging yourself without enjoying the learning process – you often find ways to create imbalance yourself. I am also pursuing an MA (Hons.) in Public policy, so the additional work here stimulates my interest and keeps Law school from being monotonous. Since a lot of my work is related to law or policy work, work itself becomes a constant learning process for me. In fact, other activities have helped my understanding of Law more deeply than the LL.B. course or Law school itself may have.

Q) Tell us about your experience with EXAP.

The EXcellence in Arts Program (EXAP) at Sophia College for Women has been an unforgettable experience. It’s an immersive, selective program that one undertakes alongside their regular BA course. For me, it opened up a world of knowledge that I had had no idea about. EXAP is brilliant also for the mentoring it provides you, in close contact with senior professors and academicians while giving you the freedom to develop your own thinking process. Beyond research, we were taught diligence, integrity and a social consciousness oft missing from our regular formal education structures.  I’m sure I speak for my EXAP cohort when I say that we take ahead all that we learnt in EXAP each day and it continues to reflect strongly in our work and personal life.

Q) You were part of a team which conducted a research study of the Third Gender community in Mumbai. How was your experience and what motivated you to take up that specific cause?

We had to decide on selecting a research topic soon after the NALSA judgment. What worked as the deciding factor for us was how much silence these issues were shrouded in. We wanted to bring them to the forefront and engage people and communities while at it. This motivated us to understand on-ground perceptions, histories and gaps in awareness and acceptance of Third gender persons to help better implementation of the law in India.

My experience was interesting, as it exposed several in built prejudices and biases within me and taught me to re-examine my approach towards development work completely. My favorite part of our research was the case studies of Third gender persons. I think that brought forth the human factor behind the need to address issues that Third gender persons face and that is often lost behind fancy research terminology. This has also stayed with me and has motivated me to create awareness on Third gender issues and continue research on similar issues: most recently having completed a research paper on “Inclusive Education for Third gender persons in higher secondary and college education”. The research study has been an unmatched learning experience.

Q) What awareness and changes do you think  are necessary in India to properly integrate the Third Gender as an integral part of the society?

I am still learning the struggles and challenges that everyday life brings to Third gender persons.I do realize that while societal perceptions must change and evolve to accept gender as a spectrum and not a binary, we must work alongside to develop institutional structures that protect and promote the interests of those that lie outside the gender binary. Key focus areas, in my opinion, must be addressing educational gaps, creating employment opportunities, providing healthcare access and devising strategies to address gaps in societal status. I am of the belief that the best answer to this question can be given by Indian Third gender persons themselves. It would aid policy immensely if more emphasis was given on giving voice to a larger number of third gender persons when creating solutions designed to benefit them.

Q) Please tell us something about PenPal Inc. How did you come about with that idea?

PenPal Inc. was an idea born out of a 2 am conversation between myself and a friend from Pakistan. Our friendship had shown to each of us a different side of the other’s country (India & Pakistan). This is when I thought it would be fun to give other people a chance to explore something similar. We aimed to use conversation and civilian dialogue between people to bridge gaps between nations and that’s how this idea came about!

Q) You have been associated with Safecity as a Youth Outreach Coordinator and a Policy and Legal Officer. What is Safecity about and what drew you towards them?

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.

I had worked with Safecity when I was heading Students for Social Reform Initiative at Sophia College. I loved how they were seamlessly integrating technology and new age ideas to tackle the everyday issue of sexual harassment in public spaces. Apart from that, it seemed like and has been a great place to learn, for self growth and some brilliant mentoring.

Q) Please share some of your experience of working with Safecity?

In the year that I worked as the Youth Outreach Coordinator, I had a large number of volunteers and interns reach out to me post our workshops, activities or even on a personal level to tell me how much Safecity’s work had touched their lives. I have had young individuals share stories of battling their own issues of sexual harassment and finding in Safecity a safe place to talk about the same. These stories have given me hope of building a better and safer future. It was through that work, that my current work profile has emerged, as a Policy & Legal Officer. I have worked on projects that aim at more institutional and policy level corrections in our systems that aid this harassment. My experiences of working with Safecity have shown me how the work of a few people can touch so many lives. Professionally it has helped me learn immensely and apply skills I have gained through my education through practical real life experiences. In all, it’s been fabulous!

Vandita (3rd from the right) during SafeCity's 16 Days of Activism

Q) If you had to remember one moment, which can be categorized as a defining moment of your life, which one experience would you remember?

I think this was back in 2013, while I had been inclined towards development work – this incident somehow always comes to my mind when I think of the ‘why’ of my work today. This was when I was with Students for Social Reform Initiative. We used to conduct football training for the young children of the Agripada slum area in a tie up with OSCAR Foundation on weekends. Post one of our events I remember buying a bottle of water to drink and the children all gathered around me excitedly to have some of this water. They were so excited to be drinking water! In all of my life, I have never felt the privilege I was born into more acutely. This moment taught me why we must all in our lives strive to create systems and institutes that foster more equality. I never want for even one child to be excited  at the prospect of bottled drinking water while I know so many who would use that same water carelessly . This experience defines for me the need for a more just and equitable world and pretty much set the course of my life thereafter.

Q) Where do you see yourself in your future after graduation?  

That is by far the most difficult question. Though I do have an idea of what I want to be doing in 10, or maybe 15 years down the line. I want to work in the development sector and I’m using these years before graduation to feel out various sectors that interest me: rural empowerment, gender justice and youth capacity building have emerged as key areas of interest. I hope to be working in empowering these sectors through varied avenues of work, be it law or policy. At some point I hope to teach law, policy and gender to young students (like myself currently!) while working on personal initiatives to take gender equality training and awareness and the need for inclusive policymaking to classrooms across the country. 

Read more »