Chennai

The idea was to initiate an audit and work with government agencies and other stake holders involved to improve on women’s safety. “Whenever I have spoken to men who come forward to volunteer for women’s safety, most of them say they want to come out and ‘protect’ women as they are worried about their safety. Through our various projects, we try telling them that women do not need to be protected but need to be empowered,” says Sandhiyan Thilagavathy , who started AWARE, first as a Facebook page in 2013. He was deeply affected by the Nirbhaya Incident. “The incident was in the news for many days and people came out and supported the need for the women’s safety in the country. But have such incidents really stopped? There continue to be innumerable cases of violence against women and as much as the brutality of the event, the nonsense people talk about it being a woman’s fault is flashed on every media outlet’s page. When I started the page, the idea was to bring to light the heroes who were not mere spectators, but stood for what is right,” says the IT professional, whose aim was to start a social movement where there is more talk about gender equality. 

For more than two years he studied the issue through social media by engaging in gender related issues, where people discussed issues like child marriage, female foeticide, eve teasing etc. 

The involvement of these people encouraged him to take some action in the real world too. “We organised many campaigns on gender issues in neighbourhoods across the city. Now, we plan to come up with a safety audit where the volunteers spread across all strata of the society and make them fill a questionnaire about the safety issues, which we are working on. This is also to involve citizens in the cause,” says Sandhiyan, adding that they have over 200 volunteers who have signed-up to participate in this venture. 

“Even the volunteers have to go through an online test of sorts where we gauge their dedication to the issue as it will be a long process. The idea is to understand the issues and work with the stakeholders and arrive at a solution to make the city a safer place,” he says. 

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