Gurukul Fellow Elsa Marie D'Silva wins Peace-building Award

A crowd-sourcing platform which tackles sexual harassment and abuse has won Peace Direct's Women-led Peace-building Award 2017.  Red Dot Foundation (Safecity), founded by Elsa Marie D'Silva, uses data of reported abuse in public places to highlight hotspots, and to help influence policy-makers.

Elsa Marie started Safecity as a response to the Delhi gang rape in 2012.  Through encouraging women to report incidents of sexual assault or harassment, anonymously if they wish, the data is collected then collated to produce maps and trends of abuse hotspots.  The process itself helps empower women and the maps are influencing policy-making at a local level.  Safecity is now the largest crowd map of sexual abuse in India, Kenya, Cameroon and Nepal.  Elsa Marie is a visiting fellow on the FCO-funded Gurukul fellowship programme, which is being hosted by the DPIR.  

Read more about the annual Peace-building Awards and the work of the Red Dot Foundation (Safecity) here: https://www.peacedirect.org/tomorrows-peacebuilders-awards-2017-meet-winners/