Safely

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Safely App
Safely Incorporates UCI Emergency Resources Map
Safely Map Feature Data Taken From UCI Campus Safety Resource

Inspiration

Research has shown that in our world today, 50% of women say they always or often feel unsafe walking alone at nightand 59% of women who ever walk down an alley alone feel similar emotions. Moreover, 61% of women say they regularly take steps to avoid being sexually assaulted. We keep asking ourselves: why does this keep happening to so many women?

What else do women face everyday?

Sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence in public spaces, both in urban and rural settings, are an everyday occurrence for women and girls in every country around the world. Women and girls experience and fear different forms of sexual violence in public spaces, from unwelcome sexual remarks and gestures, to rape and femicide. It happens on streets, in and around public transportation, schools, workplaces, public toilets, water and food distribution sites, and parks. This reality reduces women’s and girls’ freedom of movement. It reduces their ability to participate in school, work, and public life. It limits their access to essential services and their enjoyment of cultural and recreational activities, and negatively impacts their health and well-being. Although domestic and workplace violence is now widely recognized as a human rights violation, sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women and girls in public spaces are often neglected, with few laws or policies in place to prevent and address it.

Additionally, as an all-women team, we know firsthand the dangers that women face on the streets. As such, we decided to create an app that will help ease the worry of being unsafe, called Safely. Safely aims to move society towards a world where women do not need to feel anxious or afraid of walking alone or going outside as they have all the tools they need.

What it does

The mobile app has three main features: (1) a map that would ideally show which streets are well-lit and therefore safer for women to pass through, the nearest precinct or blue light emergency phone, and which areas are most often struck by crime; (2) a checklist of safety items like pepper spray or a self-defense keychain; and (3) a crisis button that calls 911 for you.

How we built it

We used React Native and Google Cloud Platform to create the mobile app. The wireframes we used as reference were made using Adobe XD.

Challenges we ran into

Google Maps was difficult to integrate into the mobile app. We also weren't able to customize it to show only the landmarks we wanted.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We created something that would make a positive impact on women's quality of life.

What we learned

We learned how to better use tools like GCP and React Native.

What's next for Safely

We didn't get to fully implement the last feature (911 button), but that would probably be feasible with Twilio or something similar. We would also want to deploy our app.