2018-2019
Mission Statement
The LMSTA team consists of responsible and diligent girls that are passionate about their interests. This team has participated twice before in the areas of immigration and air pollution as those pressing issues were in the forefront of our communities. Currently, the safety of our friends and neighbors are at stake in our community. It has come to our attention that sexual harassment is prevalent in our community by seeing many brave women and men share their story of trauma and experiences with sexual harassment and abuse everywhere from Hollywood to college campuses and supreme court nominations. As a result our team has voted to fight back and help curve traumatic experiences from taking place, by focusing on a product to aid in self defense.
In many cases survivors mention not being able to fight back as fear takes over them, thus by having a product that blares a noise and notifies the police and an app containing information about previous sexual harassment and abuse history in the area, women and men will be prepared for the worst case scenario. In addition, having an app that teaches self defense tactics will allow victims to fight back against the perpetrator in the case that fear doesn’t over take them. People, especially women will no longer fear walking alone at night or feel vulnerable to attacks.
Project Need
Our team will do its part to solve the problem of sexual harassment that all people, especially women, experience on a daily basis. The lack of trust against victims of harassment and abuse has been a persistent problem that belittles victims and empowers abusers. The need for an efficient protection device at a low cost is more necessary than ever, because we now live in a society where more women are empowering other women, and we can help learn how to defend ourselves and each other.
Sexual harassment and abuse has become clear through statistical data that states 1 in 6 women experience high rates of sexual violence. However, this issue extends towards different groups such as the male population and the LGBTQ+ community where every 1 in 10 rape victims are male and “21% of of TGQN (transgender, gender queer, nonconforming) college students have been sexually assaulted” according to the research shown on RAINN organization website. The effects of sexual assault extend even further as victims can get PTSD from the events experience and even end their own life.
The need for an anti-sexual harassment tool falls under the impact area of health and wellness, considering the physical and mental repercussions that come with sexual abuse. It is important for us to help people that have gotten hurt because of harassment, and to make sure that they have the support they deserve.
Process
Team Planning:
In order to make progress on our product and events, we met every Monday during lunch. This proved to not be enough time to work on event planning, app design, product design and website design. At our first retreat, we split into four teams: Website Team, Programming Team, Design Team and Outreach Team. We then decided to use the Monday meetings as a way to come together as a team and give each other updates on our progress. Throughout the week, we had to meet within our teams to work on the project. As the year progresses, we found that there were many weeks where we did not have school on Mondays due to holidays, so we decided to have a second retreat which proved to be very helpful.
At these meetings we also discussed what events we were going to put on and what deliverable we wanted to have. For example, we had two team members along with one of our advisers, be the experts in self defense training which meant that they needed to know all the self defense moves in order to teach it to others.
Team Events: We hosted a total of three events that reached 300 people in our community. A big part of our audience were students, teachers and parents in our school. We were able to outreach to all these people through school events that were open to the public. We used the school wide Scavenger Hunt to inform students about sexual harassment, the Spring Concert where we had a table and promo day for the end of the year dance.
At the scavenger hunt Ofelia Maribel and Andrea ran the booth. They asked a question and the person who got the correct answer got a candy. From there, the rest of the group had to complete one self defense move, the grab and pull. Andrea demonstrated how to properly do it and from there they did this move until they reached the other stand where the clues were given. At the Spring Concert a handful of our girls ran this booth. There was many of us and we then showed them how to do certain self defense moves on a dummy. They were given rewards such as cookies, GBLA stickers , journals or candy. At prom day Daniela and Andrea ran the both where pizza was given out to students who looked at our app and answered three questions about sexual harassment. The four questions were "Have you or someone you know ever felt unsafe walking alone? Have you ever been shamed for the clothing you have worn? Have you ever felt insecure in a public location?and Have you or someone you know ever been sexually assaulted/harassed? explain as much as you feel comfortable."
Civic Engagement
By designing an app and a product, we would be able to advertise to other demographics, not just high school students. This product could be carried around in areas that are deemed “high risk”.
We would be advocating for the safety of humans everywhere, as this is the type of thing that can happen to anyone, regardless of gender or social status.
It is essential to provide to the safety of males and females in today’s oppressive society. In that sense, we believe that expanding our project beyond the school would benefit to the security of the common people, as this is the type of thing that can happen to anyone, regardless of gender or social status. By designing an app and a product, we would be able to advertise to other demographics, and not just high school students.
This product could be carried around in areas that are deemed dangerous, and would be more accessible to those using cellular devices on a daily basis. As we live in a technologically advanced world, it is important to cater to the new methods of instant communication provided. Simply, at just the click of a button, the end user will have a way to protect themselves from the dangers that lurk outside. We advocate for the safety of men and women everywhere, and it is our duty to build a movement of civically engaged students through Girls Build LA. In order to spread awareness and advocacy, we intend to utilize social media as the foundation of publicity. Given that social media has made a great impact in modern times, using said means to our advantage will allow us to spread the word about the current issues concerning sexual harassment and human trafficking. Furthermore, we intend to participate in events such as the protests against Kavanaugh and the Women’s March to advocate the rights of women.
Project Planner
Outcome
A short term effect of our application/device is to ultimately allow women/men to become more comfortable the moment they exit out of their places of safety and avoid attacks by sexual predators. These attacks may be constant or at random intervals, but whatever is the case, our solution is bound to bring a measure of immediate help to aid in situations of emergency through a technological artifact that the individual can use. To be more specific the app "Athenaia" will continue to be developed in order to ping a user's location to emergency contacts, if they feel unsafe or are being harassed. The "Before" section provides quick self-defense moves that the user can practice as to increase their feeling of safety in public. Lastly, our still developing "After" section would provide a forum for sexual assault survivors, and various resources for mental and physical health.
A long term effect of our application/device is to provide support to women/men in regards to their health and wellness after unfortunate sexual harassment attacks concerning emotional or mental traumas, such as PTSD. Due to a variety of experiences from each victim, our solution will works towards either avoiding or relieving long and short term psychological grievances that each individual undergoes.
Through the entirety of this project, we were able to produce a prototype for our product and a mobile application demonstrated below. The product is meant to be a concealed weapon, meaning the attackers will be unaware of the harm they can experience. The hand held weapon will also contain a button that will be able to send your location to the user's emergency contacts through our mobile application. The button will also be used to send out SOS messages in the case that you are being attacked. Although this is still in its development stage, the pen-like weapon is able to be used to hit pressure points and other sensitive areas of an attacker's body.
A long term effect of our application/device is to provide support to women/men in regards to their health and wellness after unfortunate sexual harassment attacks concerning emotional or mental traumas, such as PTSD. Due to a variety of experiences from each victim, our solution will works towards either avoiding or relieving long and short term psychological grievances that each individual undergoes.
Through the entirety of this project, we were able to produce a prototype for our product and a mobile application demonstrated below. The product is meant to be a concealed weapon, meaning the attackers will be unaware of the harm they can experience. The hand held weapon will also contain a button that will be able to send your location to the user's emergency contacts through our mobile application. The button will also be used to send out SOS messages in the case that you are being attacked. Although this is still in its development stage, the pen-like weapon is able to be used to hit pressure points and other sensitive areas of an attacker's body.
Evidence
During a lunch time activity, Lennox MST Academy students were asked questions related to sexual assault and harassment in our community, below are a few answers.
1. Have you or someone you know ever felt unsafe walking alone? 3. Have you ever felt insecure in a public location?
“Yes, especially at night.” “You feel like you're being looked at in an inappropriate way.”
“Yes, because I never know when someone is "Yes, I do often."
going to do something to me.” "All the time."
"I have friends that feel unsafe because they "When I am alone.”
fear they could be taken."
"Yes, most of the time"
2. Have you ever been shamed or clothing you have worn? 4.Have you or someone you know ever been sexually assaulted or harassed?
"Yes. It feels horrible." "Yes. My friend [has] been touched when they didn't even know the person"
"Yep, short shorts or strapless shirts." "Yes, [I have] been touched inappropriately"
"Yes, "girls should respect themselves". " "Yes after they [friend] left a party"
“Yes, by elderly people.” “Yes, my sister was harassed in front of my house. A guy grabbed her a**.”
“Told me to cover up more and not show so much skin.” “No, but it does make me aware that it can happen.”
Reflection
Overall, this project had many different aspects attached to it and required a team effort in order to happen. It was surprising to us how we could take an issue that we found very important to address in our community and turn it into something bigger. Our project involved reaching out to the community, creating an app and designing a product. Each of these things required it’s own team in order to make it happen. As the project went on, we found out that many people in our community were concerned on the issue of sexual assault and wanted to learn self defense, but never sought out on training. This comes to show that you just need one person or in this case a team of girls to start the conversation on such a controversial issues so that something can be done about it.
If we had the opportunity to do this project over again, we would begin a lot earlier. As the project went on, we discovered many other things that could have been implemented or needed to be addressed in order to improve our project. For example, we could have reached out to law enforcement, health professionals or anyone else that has knowledge on sexual assault and get their opinion on our product or app to see how we can improve it. Beginning the project earlier would also have allowed us time to create multiple prototypes for our product and improve our mobile app.
Finally, on thing we would like the judges to know is that even though our product could use some improvement, we found it very rewarding to work on this project and bring awareness to sexual assault. This is an ongoing issue, especially in our community, and it is not commonly discussed. We feel really accomplished just by knowing that we were able to start a conversation in our community about sexual harassment and hopefully this is just the beginning of that.
If we had the opportunity to do this project over again, we would begin a lot earlier. As the project went on, we discovered many other things that could have been implemented or needed to be addressed in order to improve our project. For example, we could have reached out to law enforcement, health professionals or anyone else that has knowledge on sexual assault and get their opinion on our product or app to see how we can improve it. Beginning the project earlier would also have allowed us time to create multiple prototypes for our product and improve our mobile app.
Finally, on thing we would like the judges to know is that even though our product could use some improvement, we found it very rewarding to work on this project and bring awareness to sexual assault. This is an ongoing issue, especially in our community, and it is not commonly discussed. We feel really accomplished just by knowing that we were able to start a conversation in our community about sexual harassment and hopefully this is just the beginning of that.