Globalizing Gender

Good work merits good funding. As an Elevate Prize winner I would use the funding to elevate dotzz, an app I've created to provide assistance to survivors of gender-based violence (GBV). GBV includes domestic violence, child marriage, human trafficking, sexual assualt, and female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C)- which is the cutting/removal of the clitoris or the sewing together of the labias. The money will be used to complete the technical building of the app, to market the app through trusted channels (service providers and stakeholders in the gender justice communities), and for monitoring and scaling the app to its' projected maximum capacity which would include voice activation to record incidents or attacks for documentation and the ability to have real-time legal/mental and health/medical sessions with providers, if necessary for the most secure delivery. Technology at the intersection of social justice of this kind comes at a cost, but providing safety to those that need it most is priceless! 

I’m an artivist (activist + artist), advocate, academic, attorney, entrepreneur and yoga instructor. I’ve been an educator and attorney for 21 and 15 years, respectively as reflected in my efforts writing the Solomon Islands first draft of their anti-human trafficking law and having created the only holistic legal services program to date in NYC for continental African survivors of domestic violence.

I founded Globalizing Gender (GG), whose mission is to create a ‘Gender Just’ world. Tackling FGM/C in the US, I organized NYC’s inaugural march to end FGM/C in the United States and I’m a contributing author to NYC’s first legislation to create an FGM/C-specific task force in the Mayor’s Office. I founded dotzz, an app to assist survivors of gender violence and PROFIT + JULY, a line of inclusive-sized yoga mats.

I lead TEDx talk on FGM/C,

https: //www.ted.com/talks/natasha_john... t_five. As an artist I curate public forums and create editorial-styled work that critiques and raises awareness of GBV. I lecture and consult locally, nationally, and internationally on issues of GBV, art and the law. 

We believe in innovation and want to inject that philosophy in gender justice work. In dismantling the roots of gender injustice there must be an analysis of culture, norms, and even custom laws. The approaches require specificity, not 'band-aids'. We believe in celebrating the strength of survivors as opposed to limiting their role to ‘victim’. The future requires multi-disciplinary approaches to ending gender injustice including uprooting racism, anti-immigration, patriarchy, and classism.

On average nearly 20 people are attacked by their intimate partner a minute in the US. 1 in 4 individuals that identify as female and 1 in 7 that identify as male experience domestic violence. In one year that's nearly 10 million people. 200 million women and girls alive today have experienced FGM/C. More than 500,000 women and girls in the US are at threat of FGM/C and nearly 65,000 are in the NY metropolitan area where Globalizing Gender centers our work. Adhering to COVID-19 shelter-in-place rules has only increased the isolation and the proximity to perpetrators that many experiencing gender-based violence endure. dotzz’ goal is to intervene on that proverbial hold the perpetrator has and to assist survivors connect the ‘dotzz’ to their safety. 

dotzz allows for folx experiencing GBV to identify shelter, legal, mental health, medical, law enforcement, and safety planning from their phone when they can determine the safest times to seek assistance. Because resources are more compromised honoring quarantine rules, dotzz is designed to be a resource to help eliminate isolation those experiencing GBV experience and to encourage their agency navigating the varying components necessary to break from a cycle of violence. dotzz aims to take a restorative justice approach to gender justice advocacy by having the survivor dictate their needs, rather than service providers. dotzz hopes to be a real-time resource for those needing it most, helping them connect the 'dotzz' to resources they’ve assessed they need most and when they can access them safest.

dotzz is a secure app that disappears on phone home screens once a profile is set up and users can share any necessary information with vetted members of their 'cube' (friends, family or service providers) to reduce isolation and prevent perpetrators from destroying important documentation- common when survivors attempt to break the cycle of violence. dotzz users will be able to document incidents directly in their profile to refresh recollection and/or for court proceedings. 

Body-integrity is at the core of humanity. The ability for people to feel safe in their own bodies is a fundamental human right. Individuals experiencing forms of GBV don’t have safety in their bodies and Globalizing Gender works to restore this principle- if not in their bodies in laws, policies, systems, and practices surrounding them so they have access to step into this space for themselves. While we hope our efforts to change the external environments facilitating GBV, this is only to help restore justice to survivors because “the work [they] do on [themself] is the work [they] do on the world.” (Anonymous)

Effectiveness looks like everytime someone says they are no longer afraid and they know they matter. We are developing dotzz phases 0 and 1, estimated launch late Spring/early Summer 2021. We’re organizing a virtual panel of creators at the intersection of technology and social justice to present to stakeholders/users/investors. We’ll run a small pilot in NYC for 3-4 months for technical upgrades and to incorporate a monetization plan. By late Fall, we’ll implement dotzz phases 2 and 3 which allow for virtual medical/legal/mental health sessions and voice-activated recording via dotzz.