Mumbai based independent filmmaker and activist who became an entrepreneur, launches an app for the safety of women and Vulnerable communities.
Worried by her daughter's safety, Madhureeta launched Phree app in 2019 and has also recently raised Rs 2 crore in seed funding.
This all started when on a summer day in the year 2014, filmmaker and activist Madhureeta Anand was out for a stroll along the road adjacent to a highway in South City 1, Gurugram at 6:30 in the evening. A man then assaulted her from behind and when she somehow managed to fight back, he fled away. On reaching a nearby police station to report the incident, the police commented that she should not have gone out alone at that time.
In a country like India, where women are unsafe even in daylight or most of the time such an insensitive attitude towards women's safety makes things even harder for women. The latest indifferent behavior came from Chandramukhi Devi who is a member of the National Commission for Women (NCW).
Being a woman herself, she responded to the horrifying gang rape and murder case of a 50-year-old from UP, an event that shook the whole country, she told the Victim's family ' At any influence, a woman should keep track of time, and should not venture out late. Possibly, had the victim not gone out in the evening, or gone along with a family member, she could have been protected"
"They think that safety is the responsibility of women," says Madhureeta, society has commandeered all the responsibilities on us Women, whereas it should depend on the whole community to protect women and all the other vulnerable communities.
Still, now, Madhureeta has not been able to recover from this incident and with her teenage daughter growing, she has this fear inside her, whether if she's going to be safe or not when going out, or be able to track her location and tell her if a particular location is safe or not. When such information about a locality, the street wasn't available to any of us, Madhureeta thought of creating something that will aim at women's safety and that's how Phree App was born in July 2019.
Phree is a simple app that allows users to mark streets, areas, or associations whether they are safe or not based on their experience. They can also write down the reason in the review for others to have a better explanation.
Ensuring the safety of women and the LGBTQ community this app is successful in ensuring the safety of women and helping families to plan outings in better, safe places.
Madhureeta Expects that with time, police, law, and local guards will also have access to this app and will see it themselves that whether a particular area, the locality is safe or not. This applies to all the restaurants and bars also.
If a restaurant is marked unsafe by 1000 women, then there's something wrong with the place and not with the women.
Within a year of launching the app, Phree has over 3,500 active users and sees around 700 downloads in a month which is an overwhelming response!
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