My daughter loves learning new skills (or maybe that’s just her excuse to get out of the house) and I’m always sending her around the city to learn something new. Every time she goes out in a cab, I make sure I take a picture of the taxi number plate and ask her to send me a message when she’s reached her destination. All of this was going as perfectly as planned, until one day. One day, she was going for one of her Training Centers, and in the rush of sending her on time I had forgotten to take a picture of the taxi’s number plate. Incidentally the very same day, I did not receive any message from her. As the minutes passed by, my heart started racing. The survival instinct of a mother kicked in and I tried to find every way possible to contact her. The training Centre didn’t respond, my messages and my calls weren’t reaching her. I felt Helpless. I quickly jumped into my car and rushed to her Training Center. The 20 minutes travel felt like an hour or maybe even day. I was haunted by my fears. What if she didn’t reach the Training Center? Where do I go then? What if she calls me for help, and I’m not able to reach her on time? And many more things were running in my head, which I can’t even explain. Well before this story gets scary, I’ll tell you I was lucky to reach her training Centre and see she was doing just fine. Someone had accidentally taken her phone thinking its theirs and she too was searching for it. And I use the word LUCKY that I found her. Because after this incident the reality struck to me that many girls in the world are going missing as you and I are reading this essay. I don’t think I know anyone close to me who doesn’t have this fear for themselves and especially their girl children. This made me to think that this shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t be scared about basic survival. I should be able to peacefully sit at home and not worry that something would happen to my daughter, the same way I wouldn’t worry for my son. There needs to be a system where young girls can seek immediate protection when they perceive danger. We talk about laws and justice systems and what punishment must be given to the accused, but isn’t there a way to prevent the crime itself in the first place? That’s when I got along with 3 of my other colleagues and had a discussion on how we can use technology, apps, devices, etc., where anyone in danger, within the press of a button, can get help. This alert must be sent to a common control room and the message must be passed onto to any volunteer who is in the nearest location. A simple coordinated system with the help of government and volunteers can make this possible. I never wanted myself or anyone else to face this fear ever again. And that’s how my journey with SAFEWAC started…

Despite being a regular visitor to my house they are always scared of me. They will call me when they need something, but as soon as I open the balcony door, they fly to the other side of the building, watch me from the other end and wait for me to keep something and leave, so that they come and pick up their food. Days passed by, even months and still they don’t seem to feel safe in my presence. Well, there is one exceptional crow who boldly sits near me and isn’t scared, but all the rest are right opposite. It made me think, by nature, all living beings are here to live together in harmony. If there is fear in animals for the many years that we have been existing together, then that is because for many years we have been a cause of danger to them. Their entire life is defined by flying away in fear as soon as they see a human being. But this made me realize that this isn’t just the case between animals and humans, but this is how we women feel a lot of the times in this world. Everywhere we go alone there is a subtle but deep fear of being attacked. We can’t casually walk around. We are always on survival instinct mode, if not consciously the fear is always there on a subconscious level for most women. We come to this world to enjoy, achieve our purpose, and leave. Not to be scared about our safety all the time. It’s all our responsibility to make sure that every human being lives a scare-free life. I thought, safety need is a very basic need for human beings, which is compromised to a very larger extent in this world when it comes to women and children. The human brain has evolved, technology is advanced, and media is far reaching. We can make this a better place for everyone. I felt that why not use people, technology, and media to protect the basic safety needs of women and children. And that's how my journey on SAFEWAC began…

Related Links: Lear to Co-exist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2hNKrfsyNw

This put a brake in my life, and everything went upside down. I started to rebuild everything from scratch. I even struggled to pay the monthly salaries of my employees. Every month end became a nightmare. I started to see what financial insecurity and survival pressure truly feels like. This prompted me to have a conversation with my daughter. I asked her if she had any survival insecurities in her life. I was expecting her to ask me to repeat the question, or just say no. But to my surprise she replied with a very straightforward and casual YES of course. She added that she always felt insecure in her life. She feels insecure while walking on the road, while going to someplace new, travelling alone in a taxi or even while being home alone. I asked her what bothers her as the place we live in, is one of the safest cities for women. She said, “even-though this may be one of the safest cities, the fear of safety is instilled in a Girl’s mind knowingly or unknowingly by the society. She said- “Dad the fear has become a second nature to me and that’s my natural response, even if someone rings the calling bell at the door, I need to be mentally prepared for an attack. I know I can’t fight a grown man if he decides to attack me. This isn’t anything new. All my friends and all of us are like this.” This surprised me because I thought I had given her complete freedom of choice and allowed her to explore the various aspects of life freely. But I didn’t realize that freedom too comes to no use when there is danger stopping one from acting freely. I started thinking about the women in rural areas. If even women in the city have this fear, what about the other women living in lesser privileged areas? I went on and asked the same to few of my male and female friends. I even discussed this with one of my close colleagues (who I am lucky to be working on this project with). Everyone seemed to agree that this is how it is. It seemed to be a very casually accepted but alarming issue. Me being under financial debt made me realize what it meant to live a life constantly under survival pressure. At least here I can take loans, seek help, figure my way out. But what girls and women face on a day-to-day basis, is basic life threat. Threat to a very basic need- to be safe in this world without the fear of being attacked. This made me think that this shouldn’t be an accepted issue and we must do something about it. This is the beginning of my journey with SAFEWAC…

Long story short, this was a movie about a housewife who gave her heart and soul to serve her husband and his family. She did it with true dedication and you can say somewhat blind love. One day she is awakened by the truth that this love and care isn’t reciprocated enough. To celebrate an important occasion, a party is organized for her husband, where the husband slaps her in front everyone while taking his anger out on some office politics. The subsequent events becomes an eye opener for her and everyone around her. Well, let me not spoil the movie for you so I am going to stop there. As a man this movie changed my entire outlook about housewives and women in general. I realized how I was living a life of unawareness with a Taken for granted attitude. I realized how people in my family and society in general treat women as objects and have a sense of entitlement to their self-less contributions to the family. We fail to see them as an individual life- with their own purpose and dreams, to which we must contribute towards too, the same way they contribute to us. This made me to take the effort to grow empathy to the women around me and start recognizing what they are doing for me. Off course in today’s world, things have changed a lot for the good. But this change has occurred through revolution and fight for basic freedom by women for women. Not much from a place of realization and understanding by men. One of the most alarming ways women are discriminated in this world is by lack of safety they have. They can’t go outside alone with the same ease and fearlessness as I can go outside per say, and this would probably be the first and the biggest step towards equality. That’s why I joined this project and hope we all can together create this world a safe place for women and children.