You are a Changemaker, Hollaback!
Location
Hollaback! targets street harassment at its source, not with brawn but with brains: mobile technology will help girls and women individuals safely report harassment and assault from their phones. Experiences and photos will be mapped and available publicly online.
About You
Section 1: You
First Name
Emily
Last Name
May
Website URL
Organization
Hollaback!
Country
United States
Section 2: Your Organization
Organization Name
Hollaback!
Organization Website
Organization Phone
646-823-3082
Organization Address
26 Court Street, Brooklyn NY 11242
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
United States
Your idea
Name Your Project
You are a Changemaker, Hollaback!
Country and state your work focuses on
United States, NY
Describe Your Idea
Hollaback! targets street harassment at its source, not with brawn but with brains: mobile technology will help girls and women individuals safely report harassment and assault from their phones. Experiences and photos will be mapped and available publicly online.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
Street harassment is one of the most pervasive forms of violence against women, and one of the least legislated against. Comments from "You’d look good on me" to groping, flashing or assault, are a daily, global reality for women and girls. Street harassment is rarely reported to authorities due to its social acceptance and stigma. As a result, street harassment is invisible to policymakers and the public, leaving women and girls disempowered and perpetrators held unaccountable. This effective “OK’ing” of street harassment has deep impacts on all forms of violence against women. If street harassment is OK, then groping is OK. If groping is OK, the beating is OK. If beating is OK, then rape is OK, and violence against women simply isn’t OK. By ending street harassment, Hollaback seeks to end the culture that makes violence against women OK.
Hollaback! targets sexual harassment at its source, not with brawn but with brains: mobile technology will provide a safe way for victims to report harassment and assault directly from their cell phones. Experiences will be submitted through SMS texts and the Hollaback! mobile phone application. Crimes will be mapped, made publicly available, and analyzed in an annual "State of Our Streets" report.
After a successful New York City pilot, Hollaback! will be brought to scale globally in cities with pre-existing anti-harassment movements from New Haven to New Delhi. When asked about the impact of Hollaback!, Holly Kearl, author of the forthcoming Stop Street Harassment (August 2010), said, “I know of no other project that has the potential or the intent to address street harassment on so many levels. I fully expect Hollaback! to lead the way in anti-street harassment activism by providing activists with a blueprint for what they can do in their communities." Through the simple push of a button, Hollaback! will revolutionize girls and women’s ability to document these otherwise unreported crimes.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
Hollaback! inspired an anti-street-harassment movement that led to twenty affiliate Hollaback sites worldwide. Collectively, we have documented over 2,000 stories and have over 20,000 visitors to the site per month. Hollaback!’s momentum has attracted significant media attention. Hollaback! has been featured on Good Morning America, MSNBC, the Today Show, Fox.com, and the Paula Zahn show, as well as local New York newspapers like the New York Times, Daily News, Metro International, AMNY, and the Post. Hollaback!’s CEO Emily May has also written op-eds that have been published in the Daily News and Metro International. Hollaback! is also a co-founding member of New Yorkers for Safe Transit, which in 2008 successfully got the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) to post anti-harassment and assault ads in the New York City Subway system. The ads are still in place today, and are located in almost every car system-wide. Street harassment will be the leading women’s issue this decade and Hollaback! is poised to lead the charge.
Problem
When sexual harassment occurs, many must choose between ignoring it (and feeling victimized) or fighting it (and risking personal safety). Those that attempt to report it to the police are frequently told there is nothing they can do; adding insult to injury, authorities regularly fail to report these crimes to the public, making them virtually invisible. On the New York City subways (2007 study), 63% of riders are harassed and 10% are assaulted. With 5 million people riding the subway every weekday, it is fair to say that these crimes are at epidemic proportions. And yet 97% of these crimes go unreported. Without the support, empowerment, and tools to report harassment and assault, it will continue to go unnoticed.
Actions
Hollaback will take the following steps to make sure our innovation is a success:
• We will create an open-source, mobile platform where girls and women can report street harassment and assault worldwide - bringing awareness to these otherwise invisible crimes.
• We will launch a marketing campaign that encourages women to Hollaback! against their street harassers. The campaign will including a branding process, new website, social media integration, and a press strategy.
• We will work with public officials will develop coordinated plans that keep girls and women safe on the streets, buses, and subways in New York City.
Results
We anticipate our actions will result in measured progress including:
• Hollaback! will successfully pilot in New York City and track over 2,000 stories of harassment and assault.
• As part of our marketing strategy, Hollaback will have a new logo, new website, and will attact at least 20 media hits, publish no fewer than six articles, and present to 15 universities and community groups each year.
• Hollaback! will issue a “State of the Streets” report in coordination with Barnard Center for Research on Women’s “New Feminist Solutions” program. We will also with elected officials in the communities most impacted by street harassment.
Hollaback!’s ultimate success will be met when every woman can walk down the streets in every city across the world without fear of harassment and assault.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
To be successful over the next three years will require:
Year 1: Sufficient foundation and individual donor support to launch the pilot in New York City and bring on a full-time executive director. A successful marketing campaign that inspires women to Hollaback! against street harassers. The successful development and implimentation of an ad-revenue generating mechanism on the site.
Year 2: A “State of the Street” report issues in coordination with Barnard Center for Research on Women’s “New Feminist Solutions” project. Sufficient funding to hire an IT professional and an ad-sales director. Expansion of the New York City pilot to new locations.
Year 3: Sufficient ads sales to reach sustainability. Continued growth into new markets worldwide. Significant policy change led community leaders by local legislators who are inspired to action by the Hollaback! maps of their districts.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
There are risks involved in all social change solutions, particularly technological ones. From our experience we have been able to foresee three challenges:
• Women’s Safety. If a woman is Holla'ing back while in a dangerous situation, her safety may be further compromised. To minimize this risk, we’ve developed a feature on the iPhone app that allows girls and women to simply press the “Hollaback!” button in that moment. The app will send an automatic email to her requesting additional information on the crime, and she can enter the information when she is in a safe location. Beyond the iPhone app option, the woman can report harassment via SMS text or the mobile browser after the event occurs.
• Unreliable or Falsified Data. Because nearly anyone can download the iPhone app, send an SMS text, or submit an email form, there is the possibility that people can send false or accidental data. To eliminate obviously false reports, we are developing an on-line backend database that will allow us to approve or deny posts. To help mitigate the submission of other false or accidental incident reports, Barnard Center for Research on Women has agreed to develop a “State of the Streets report,” to review and validate the data.
• Organizational Capacity and Scaling Up. Hollaback!’s model for data collection and social change is portable; it can work in nearly any community. While we anticipate great interest in quickly scaling up to provide the technology to other cities, we will take care not to expand in a way that outpaces our organizational capacity.
How many people will your project serve annually?
1001‐10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$1000 - 4000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
In what country?
United States, NY
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
RightRides for Women's Safety
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
No
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
The concept for Hollaback! was developed in collaboration with some of the brightest minds in the field. Hollaback! has had also had significant input from Joanne Smith, the executive director of Girls for Gender Equity, an organization with a history of grassroots anti-harassment work, and Holly Kearl, who just completed the book Stop Street Harassment, which will be published in 2010. There is already interest to bring Hollaback! to additional cities. Chai Shenoy and Shannon Lynberg operate HollabackDC and Jasmeen Patheja who operates Blank Noise Project (an anti-harassment initiative) in India have both agreed to launch Hollaback! in their respective communities. Barnard Center for Research on Women, which is part of Barnard College, is an early funder of this initiative and is incorporating Hollaback! into its “New Feminist Solutions” series.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
Action #1: Open-source, scalable, and smart technology. Once our Iphone app, SMS texting, mapping system, logo, and website are in place, we plan to open-source the technology to other anti-street-harassment communities across the world that are interested in implementing the technology. This technology could be used to gather crowd-sourced data on a number of social justice issues including minorities who are passed up by available cabs or people who unlawfully park in handicap parking spots.
Action #2: Successful marketing strategy. Our marketing strategy has two goals. First, to empower women to “Hollaback!” against their street harassers and second, to educate the public on the severity of street harassment in their communities. To do this, we will integrate social media, develop a PSA in coordination with a producer from the Anthony Bourdain show, secure celebrity endorsements (in progress), and do a “Why I Hollaback” campaign where girls and women post videos that document the impact Hollaback has made on their lives. We will also coordinate a significant press campaign.
Action #3: Sustainable revenue. Unlike most nonprofits, Hollaback! has the unique capacity to generate revenue. There will two versions of the Iphone app: free and donate-to-download. In addition, each ping-back email will include advertising from our corporate sponsors. We anticipate that after two years, Hollaback! will generate sufficient funding for sustainability. Until then, we are seeking start-up funding from foundations.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
In 2005, fed up with the prevalence of street harassment and frustrated with the lack of an effective response, Emily May co-founded HollabackNYC.com. HollabackNYC is a forum where people can “hollaback” by photographing their harassers, submitting pictures and detailing stories to the site. HollabackNYC quickly became an empowering outlet and today there are twenty Hollaback sites worldwide, with over 10,000 readers. HollabackNYC pushed street harassment awareness to a tipping point—it is now poised to be the cornerstone issue for women in the 2010’s, in the same way that workplace harassment was in the 1980’s.
In 2009, we (Oraia Reid, executive director of RightRides for Women's Safety and Emily May, co-founder of HollabackNYC.com) witnessed an influx of crimes that led us to a moment of obligation. If a simple, volunteer-run website could create such impact, what could an organization do? We envision leveraging existing, inexpensive, and widely accessible technologies to foster social change. A safe, welcoming platform will document offenses, while local resources will be integrated to raise awareness and empower women to pursue tougher laws to combat it. With Hollaback! as a catalyst, local women will shift this normalized behavior from acceptable to shameful. We are honored to lead the charge.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Hollaback! is a joint project of Oraia Reid, executive director of RightRides for Women's Safety and Emily May, co-founder of HollabackNYC.com. Oraia and Emily are nationwide experts on public safety for women and the LGBT community. They are frequent commentators in the media, appearing as sources over forty times, including ABC, CNN, NBC, the New York Times, and authoring two op-eds in national papers. Oraia has certificates from Harvard and Columbia's Business Schools and is a Junior Fellow at the Nonprofit Leadership Development Institute. Emily has a Master's Degree from the London School of Economics, is a winner of the 2008 Stonewall Women's Award and is a Progressive Women's Voices Fellow. RightRides for Women’s Safety (www.rightrides.org), is an award-winning nonprofit offering free, late-night rides home to women and LGBTQ individuals in NYC and is currently expanding nationwide.
HollabackNYC.com is currently a website with 20 chapters worldwide that is dedicated to ending street harassment by giving girls and women the opportunity to submit stories and pictures of their street harassers to an online blog. In 2008, Oraia and Emily launched New Yorkers for Safe Transit (www.nyfst.org), a coalition of community groups dedicated to ending gender-based violence on public transit. Within months of launching, the new organization successfully lobbied the MTA to introduce anti-harassment ads on all NYC lines. Oraia and Emily's work unites three key strategies for ending street harassment under one roof: direct service, reporting, and advocacy.
Street harassment is pervasive and has evoked a powerful international response; yet still, most girls and women lack hope that an alternative exists. The ability to walk safely down the street is within our reach. We want to restore hope, one Hollaback! at a time.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Friend or family member
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
50 words or fewer
 | emilymay updated this Competition Entry. - 688 days ago |
| emilymay said: Hi Alexis, Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments. Coming from a career in anti-poverty, I am committed to making this ... about this Competition Entry. - 689 days ago read more > |
| emilymay updated this Competition Entry. - 689 days ago |
| Alexis Ditkowsky said: Hi Emily, Thanks so much for your entry. I appreciate what you hope to do with tracking and mapping harassment and was curious to ... about this Competition Entry. - 690 days ago read more > |
| emilymay updated this Competition Entry. - 691 days ago |
| emilymay updated this Competition Entry. - 694 days ago |
| emilymay submitted this idea. - 694 days ago |
