Women's Safety Ambassadors

Safety trainings for individuals and businesses with certification badge. Two main components: 1) Basic trainings: - For: (Directly): individuals, local businesses, (indirectly): dense urban communities - On: Self-defense public safety, girls/women's immediate safety concerns, using organizational tools (i.e. calling the wider network for back-up help, using any tools included in the training, etc) 2) Plaque/Badge This could be a badge for an individual, a plaque for a business or household, etc. Something to publicly advertise an individual/institution as a certified Safe Space officer (definitely needs a better title).

Provide basic training on public/women's safety and self-defense to individuals who then become ambassadors, and publicly display their badges on their person, home, and/or business. 

The trained individuals can serve as accessible contact-points for individuals in need, and as part of a greater network and support system, can provide further products/services as needed (counseling, medical attention, etc). 

The badges can signify quality, consistent, refuge for those in need. On a girl's walk to/from school, she might pass a shop with a badge in front (the shopkeeper is the ambassador), a house with a badge in front (the ambassador lives inside), or a person wearing a badge walking the opposite direction, signifying that that individual is an ambassador. If she takes an autorickshaw to school, she might have the opportunity to ride with an ambassador driver.

Each badge is a public display of strength and support for women/girls, and is also inherently a deterrant for unwanted behavior. By selecting strategic individuals to undergo ambassador training, and strategic locations within each community, we can strengthen pre-existing community ties and increase perception of security in spaces in communities.


Inspiration from:
- College blue light system: visual indication for a specific person/place that can guarantees help/safe haven in unsafe situations
- B Corps: Credible, well-known brand in community storefronts that signifies specific ideals within that store
- Phone trees: One person can alert the next until "backup" arrives
- Passover: lamb's blood on the door as a marker for God to skip specific houses with the final plague

Explain your idea in one sentence.

Provide basic training on public/women's safety and self-defense to ambassadors, who use a badge to self-advertise in their community.

What is the need you are trying to solve?

Need: to create easily identifiable safe spaces for women and girls in densely populated urban areas.

Who will benefit from this idea and how would you monitor its success?

Beneficiaries: - Ambassadors: training - Vulnerable individuals: increased access to safe havens - Communities participating in ambassador program: increased security, decreased incidence of harassment behavior M&E: - incidence of specific harassment behaviors should be measured before ambassador program enters a community, and should be continually evaluated at regular intervals - perception of security can be measured qualitatively and quantitatively - number and nature of visits to ambassadors can also be regularly measured - ambassadors can be pipeline for information from vulnerable individuals regarding relevant needs/concerns

Who would be best equipped to implement this idea in the real world? You? Your organisation? Another organisation or entity?

Unclear for now. All suggestions are welcome here!

Where should this idea be implemented?

Any high-density, urban environment in which girls/women consistently feel that their safety is at risk. Particularly relevant in slums and refugee camps around the world.

How might you prototype this idea and test some of the assumptions behind it?

Can be pretty easily prototyped with basic training, and a simple badge design.