Social impact organisation plans safety audit of Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram cities

Safetipin, a social impact organisation working towards building responsive, inclusive, safe and equitable urban systems, is planning to conduct safety audits in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram cities shortly, Kalpana Viswanath, co-founder and CEO of the organisation, has said.

Ms. Viswanath interacted with The Hindu when she was in Kochi recently to attend the two-day Kerala Urban Conclave organised by the Local Self-Governments department. Safetipin conducted a similar audit in both the cities around 2018-19, she said. Safety audit is a tool to analyse a given area based on physical and social infrastructure parameters.

Addressing infrastructure gaps

“Kerala ranks high in the country in terms of infrastructure, public transport as well as responsiveness of the authorities concerned to issues pointed out. We took the data from the previous safety audit to the local bodies and the police and also worked in association with a women’s organisation in Thiruvananthapuram. The data were quite positively used in both the cities for addressing infrastructure gaps in street lighting, public transport and so on,” Ms. Viswanath said.

The organisation has been in contact with the local bodies ever since. It has also done some surveys when the Kochi water metro was planned to understand the concerns from a women’s perspective.

“We came across problems in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram cities with regard to safe public transport and transport hubs, public toilets for women, accessibility of public parks to girls and women. But problems are there in every city. The crucial thing is whether the municipalities and the police are willing to do anything to address them, do they listen to women. Kerala fares better with regard to that,” she said.

Personal safety app

Safetipin has so far conducted safety audit in nearly 35 cities in the country to understand the problematic areas, places where the women feel unsafe, infrastructural improvements and services needed for an equitable urban environment. The organisation also offers a personal safety app that helps users to make safer decisions about mobility, based on the safety score of an area. The app, which is free, is also used to crowd-source data. A user can contribute to a better understanding of their city by doing a safety audit through the app.