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  • fairuzahmed
    • Nov 18, 2020
    • 3 min read

The Parasol Cooperative and Sakhi for South Asian Women announce Strategic Partnership

Updated: May 5, 2021


New Jersey - November 16th, 2020 - The Parasol Cooperative is excited to announce a strategic partnership with Sakhi for South Asian Women in New York City to build out safe ways for victims of abuse to communicate with advocates and request help.




Globally, an estimated 1.8 billion people have experienced domestic abuse at least once in their lifetime and nearly 50% of cases go unreported due to the fear of not having a safe way to communicate. Amidst the COVID19 lockdown and economic downpour, this issue is exasperated even more and the United Nations observed a 25%-35% rise in the already staggering numbers of domestic abuse cases.


While current methods such as phone calls and text messages can serve the purpose to request help, they can also prove to be dangerous for the survivor if caught by the abuser. To address this issue a group of survivors, advocates and technologists came together in April 2020 to form The Parasol Cooperative, a fiscally sponsored nonprofit project of the Peace Development Fund while they wait for their own 501c3 status.


They are creating programs and products to enhance the work of member organizations who execute safety programs for vulnerable and under-served populations – especially populations affected by domestic violence within the United States and across the globe. For the past six months, the team has been building prototypes and an app which is now entering a critical phase of research and development. Swaroop Rane, Head of Technology at The Parasol Cooperative has been actively working on real-world user studies to ensure the application is easy to use, effective in requesting help, and provides safety to the victim of abuse before deploying it on a larger scale.


The partnership with Sakhi is the first of many the team at The Parasol Cooperative is working on. The team at The Parasol Cooperative is continuing to look for additional organizations like Sakhi to advance these technology capabilities and programs which aspire to accelerate the work of domestic abuse advocacy organizations and most importantly provide a safe method to request help for victims of abuse.


"Learning from past failures, we know that it is imperative that we build something in cooperation with survivors and advocates from organizations like Sakhi to ensure the app we develop is effective and most importantly safe for victims to request help. Our entire team is really excited about this partnership and we are collectively looking forward to making an impact together in the world of domestic abuse communications," says Megs Shah, President, and CEO of The Parasol Cooperative.


In conversation with Rashmi Luthra, the Director of Programs for Queens & Brooklyn at Sakhi echoed Ms. Shah's sentiment and felt that "this app is such an innovative and important response to survivors' increased isolation and often lack of safe spaces to access support from. We are super excited to be partnering with the Parasol Cooperative and know that this tool will help many survivors gain safety."


"A single successful request for help can save a life and that's what we intend to do, protect life through technology," added Ms. Shah.


 

To donate to The Parasol Cooperative visit their Donation Page and spread awareness of their work by following them on social media:

To donate to Sakhi NY visit their Donation Page and spread awareness of their work by following them on social media:

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