Category: Online and Offline Events

I had an amazing week curating for Safecity on Twitter. Time flies when we do things that really matter to us. In the past week, I think we all agreed that Collective Social Responsibility brings us all together – Government, Corporates, NGOs, individuals, and communities. We must all take the ownership and work towards making this world a better, more compassionate place to live. Our decisions affect not only us, but also how the world around us at large takes shape and functions. In case you missed this week’s discussions, here’s a brief overview of a few key items and takeaways to note.

We discussed several things surrounding social responsibility. We shared examples, asked questions, shared views on: Socially responsible fashion; Social responsible investing (SRI); Socially responsible tourism; Leadership in the social responsibility space; and Socially responsible businesses.

We had three amazing guest contributors – Vritti Pasricha of Vritti Designs, Susmita Mukherjee of Alpaviram, and Vasu Primlani.

Vritti founded a company that focuses on keeping Indian textile art alive in the purest form possible by supporting and encouraging local artisans and weavers to find the right value for their product which will enable their basic survival especially the women of rural India.

Susmita founded Alpaviram with two of her friends to create India’s first responsible travel platform. Alpaviram aims to create responsible travellers by keeping the conversation around responsible initiatives active, through articles, workshops, talks and walks!

Vasu is many things. She is a standup comedian, professor, triathlete, and- a somatic therapist. She has received over a dozen international awards for her work, her latest being the highest award given by the president of India to a woman – the Nari Shakti award. She specializes in preventing rape, the authentic self, and does somatic therapy for survivors and rapists alike.

Takeaways:

• Be it fashion, tourism, or financial decisions, we have the power to decide how our part in any of these things would affect the world around us. We can dare to lead and be a force for good if we wanted to.
• It isn’t possible to trace how each person’s actions produce specific effects on others. There are too many mediating actions and events. But we all can do our bit, agree?
• It’s a two-way street. An individual has as much effect on the society as the society has on the individual.

We dug deep into our thoughts and asked ourselves – Who is completely responsible for social injustice? Victim or perpetrator? You? Me? The society? Everyone? No one? Can we forgive a social offender? Do they deserve a second chance? What determines whether or not a social offender can be forgiven? Do offenders lack empathy for their victims? Do we lack empathy for offenders? What’s the effect of vigilantism on people’s empathy? What do we need in order to make our social system – more humane, more compassionate towards both the victims and the perpetrators? What does collective social responsibility mean to you? How can we achieve it? Here’s a recap of our discussion surrounding these questions: Safecity chat on Social Responsibility. I was delighted to be among bright minds that discussed this topic with honesty and courage. They amazed me with their clarity of thoughts and awesome communication skills – @27nainajha @pointponder @ADelhiDame @greencomedian. I learnt a lot and I hope you did too.

Safecity takes social responsibility to another level by providing a platform that helps make cities safer by encouraging equal access to public spaces for everyone especially women, through use of crowdsourced data & technology. Participate, share, encourage people to use it.

I’d also read: RESPONSIBILITY GLOBAL JUSTICE: A SOCIAL CONNECTION MODEL by By Iris Marion Young