How a civic tech platform is helping women in Serbia get home safely

‘[W]hat can we change in the spaces where people live, work, study and spend their free time?’

Originally published on Global Voices

This interview is part of a series of spotlights on the work of some of the grantees of the Digital Spark granting scheme, as part of the Regional Support Mechanism EECA project, implemented by the Metamorphosis Foundation and TechSoup, in partnership with CIVICUS and under the Digital Democracy Initiative (DDI) that covers the Global South. It is being published on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.

For many women and girls in Serbia, safety is not only a question of physical protection. It influences their freedom of movement, their choices, and their ability to participate equally in public life. This issue cannot be viewed separately from the broader social position of women and young people. Reports by the Youth Umbrella Organisation of Serbia (KOMS) show that many young people experience insecurity, declining trust in institutions, and limited opportunities for meaningful participation in decisions that affect their lives. The reports also document concerning cases of pressure, threats, and security risks faced by young activists who publicly advocate for social change.

At the same time, reports of the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality highlight that gender-based discrimination and unequal treatment remain persistent challenges in Serbian society, affecting women and girls in various aspects of their everyday lives. Many incidents of harassment, intimidation, or discomfort in public spaces never become official complaints. Some women do not believe reporting will lead to change. Others fear judgment, social stigma, or consider their experience too minor to be important — but no experience is too small when it concerns the right to dignity, freedom of movement, and equal access to public spaces.

Global Voices conducted an email interview with Varvara Lazarevic, the head of an NGO in Novi Sad, Serbia, to find out what can be done about this universal problem. The NGO, Omladina JAZAS Novi Sad, and their project, SafeSteps, a civic technology platform where women can anonymously share their experiences of insecurity in public spaces, are presented here as an Impact Spotlight for the Serbian edition of the Digital Sparks Program.

Global Voices (GV): Please tell us about your organization and why you chose to get involved with the Digital Sparks project.

Varvara Lazarevic (VL): Omladina JAZAS Novi Sad has been working with young people and different marginalized groups for many years, with a focus on improving quality of life through education, information and support. We founded Omladinske novine, a youth media outlet with both print and online editions, and since last year, we have also had our own podcast studio, where we work with young people and teach them about journalism, social media and media production.

Digital Sparks was important to us because it gave us the opportunity to connect areas we have been working on for years — communication, human rights and youth work — with technology. and turn them into a practical tool.

This is how Safe Steps was created. The idea had been developing for years through my professional work, research and work with young people and women. I wanted to explore how technology could become genuinely useful to people and give visibility to experiences that often remain unheard.

GV: What issue/challenge in your community prompted you to undertake this project?

VL: For a long time, I had been thinking about experiences that happen every day but rarely become part of any official record. Someone changes the route home, walks faster through a certain part of town, sends a message to say they have arrived safely, or simply starts avoiding a particular place. All of these experiences tell us something about how people actually experience public space.

When we talk about safety, the focus often falls on what individuals should do to protect themselves. I wanted to ask a different question: what can we change in the spaces where people live, work, study and spend their free time?

SafeSteps grew out of that question. It gives people a way to anonymously share their experiences and mark the places where they happened. One experience can point to a problem, while several experiences can reveal a pattern. That can open a conversation with the community and institutions about what could be changed.

GV: What are the key changes/activities that your organization implemented during your participation in the project?

VL: The most important thing we did was turn an idea into a functioning platform. SafeSteps is now live, and people can share their experiences and mark places where they experienced violence, harassment, discrimination or felt unsafe.

Privacy was one of our main principles from the beginning. The platform works anonymously, without registration or the need to provide a name, email address or phone number. Locations are shown approximately, so that an experience can be connected to a public space while personal privacy remains protected.

At the same time, we started building communication around the platform through social media and media outreach, explaining how SafeSteps works and encouraging people to share their experiences.

Another important part of the platform is a network of more than 20 support contacts, where people can find information about different forms of assistance.

GV: How did your participation in the project impact your organization’s beneficiaries and the community that you serve? Please provide examples.

VL: I think the most important change is that we have created another way for people to make their experiences visible. There are experiences that someone may want to share, but they also need a space where they feel safe and have control over the information they provide.

SafeSteps offers exactly that. A person can share an experience anonymously and, at the same time, contribute to a broader picture of how people experience public space.

For the young people we work with, the project is also a concrete example of how technology can be used for much more than communication and entertainment. It can be a tool for participation and for starting conversations about issues that affect their everyday lives.

We are still at an early stage, so I think it is important to be realistic about long-term impact. For now, we are focused on understanding the experiences being shared and seeing how they can contribute to conversations about possible changes.

GV: How has your own knowledge, awareness, and experience with digital democracy and civic space changed through your participation in the project?

VL: I was already working at the intersection of communication, media, human rights and new technologies before this project. However, SafeSteps made me look at technology much more concretely as part of civic space.

I became especially aware of the role of trust. When you ask people to share sensitive experiences, the way technology is designed becomes just as important as the idea behind it. Privacy, data protection and digital security are not only technical issues. They directly affect whether people feel comfortable participating.

I also learned to think more carefully about the whole journey of information — from the moment a person shares an experience, through the way it is protected and processed, to how it can eventually support communication, research or dialogue with institutions.

For me, this is an important part of digital democracy: creating practical and trustworthy ways for people to participate in the communities they are part of.

GV: What are the most valuable lessons and experiences you are taking away from this project?

VL: One of the most important things I have learned is that technology itself is not the solution. It becomes meaningful when it responds to a real need and is designed responsibly.

Another important lesson is about privacy. When working with sensitive experiences, data protection has to be considered from the very beginning. People’s trust is built through every part of the platform.

The experience of collaboration that Digital Sparks brought was also very valuable to me. I saw how much knowledge exists among organizations working on similar issues and how much we can learn from one another.

And perhaps the most important lesson is that one voice can start a conversation. Several voices can reveal a pattern. Once a problem becomes visible, there is an opportunity to talk about how it can be addressed.

GV: What comes next? How will you apply the learning and digital capacity you have built in your future work and within your community?

VL: For me, SafeSteps is not a finished project. It is a beginning.

We want to continue promoting the platform, follow how people use it and carefully look at the experiences that come in. It is important for us to understand which issues and locations stand out and how we can respond through dialogue with the community and institutions.

I would like to strengthen cooperation with organizations, schools, universities, media and institutions that can contribute to safer and more inclusive public spaces. In the longer term, I see potential for the model to grow beyond Novi Sad and connect experiences from other cities in Serbia.

We will also bring what we have learned through Digital Sparks into our wider work with young people. Through Omladinske novine and our podcast studio, we can continue to have conversations about digital rights, privacy, responsible technology and information.

I would like us one day to be able to look at Serbia through citizens’ experiences and see both where problems exist and where progress has been made. For me, that is the real meaning of SafeSteps: making experiences visible, turning visibility into dialogue, and dialogue into change.