PRESS RELEASE: Code Innovation Launches a Crowdfunding Campaign for Rape Crisis Counseling App to Help Survivors Get Medical Care

Indonesia, 14 February 2016 - To celebrate V-Day today, a global day of action to end violence against women, Code Innovation launched our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to build a Rape Crisis Counseling mobile app. The resource will digitize the training that rape crisis counselors receive to become volunteer emergency room advocates for sexual violence survivors. A coalition of U.S. rape crisis centers, gender-based violence experts and women's rights defenders and non-profits are partnering with Code to adapt and create the content so that it's relevant and applicable for the international community. A network of experts and non-profits eager to use the free, Creative Commons resource in their own communities are ready to translate the content into Arabic, Farsi, French and Spanish. One of the crowdfunding campaign's perks is to allow a supporter to determine which language we add next.

"One in five women will be raped in her lifetime. That's more than 700 million women and girls. We're launching the campaign on V-Day to join our efforts with the global day of action to end violence against women. The Rape Crisis Counseling app will put advocacy resources directly into the hands of rape survivors, their family and friends, and would-be volunteers. Anyone who wants to be of service to survivors of sexual violence should have access to the information and training resources they need, wherever they are in the world," says Elie Calhoun, a Principal at Code Innovation.

Since the 1970's, rape crisis centers have provided advocacy and support services to survivors of sexual violence in their local communities. These non-profits train networks of volunteers to become Rape Crisis Counselors, who accompany sexual violence survivors through the process of getting life-saving emergency medical care, including services to prevent pregnancy, HIV and sexually-transmitted infections.

"Even in industrialized countries with well-resourced hospitals, a rape survivor isn't guaranteed to receive the medical care they need," says Calhoun. "In any context, health care providers can let their cultural beliefs and personal opinions about rape and sexual violence interfere. Even in the U.S., there are numerous cases of doctors and nurses being unwilling to provide full emergency services. This is why Rape Crisis Counselors are so important.”

"In other countries, health systems may be under-resourced and health care providers may be unaware or unable to provide a survivor with the services they need. In those cases, it's up to the survivor and whoever accompanies her to the health center to understand and advocate for her needs. Right now, there's no mobile resource that helps them do that,” says Calhoun.

Smartphone ownership and adoption is growing rapidly around the world. According to GSMA Intelligence’s most recent Global Inclusion report, “an additional 1.6 billion citizens worldwide will become mobile internet users over the next six years, bringing the total number of 3.8 billion, or around half of the world’s expected population in 2020.”

"We see smartphones as an essential tool to empower rape survivors, their family and friends, and the wider community to help ensure that survivors get the emergency health care they need,” says Calhoun. “Even if just one person in a community is able to access the Rape Crisis Counseling app in their language, they can share about the resources and help to educate others."

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#rapecrisiscounseling

To support the campaign, visit: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rape-crisis-counseling-app/x/3176191#/story

For updates, visit: http://codeinnovation.com/blog/

About Code Innovation

Code Innovation digitizes and scales programs that help vulnerable populations. We create educational materials and social innovations that strengthen communities and enable them to lift themselves out of poverty. We've had projects in more than a dozen countries and specialize in challenging, low income environments. For more information about our work, visit http://www.codeinnovation.com.

For more information, please contact:

Elie Calhoun, Code Innovation, Tel. +62-812-3802-3425, email: elie@codeinnovation.com