With International Women’s Day around the corner, the Greater Chennai Corporation will soon finalise the private agency that will be hired by the Gender Lab for developing a guidebook on women’s safety and access to public spaces.
Titled, “Empower space: Co-designing Gender Inclusive Urban Environments’ Manual with Gender inclusive Guidelines”, the scope of the manual is to understand and outline the needs of women, girls and transpersons from different socio-economic backgrounds that need to be incorporated while designing and building infrastructure and expand upon the prior efforts of the Gender and Policy Lab on identifying gaps in existing facilities such as toilets, parks and playgrounds, markets, bus stops, lights, spaces under flyovers and subways.
Auditing a maximum of 25 infrastructure, documenting the existing designs, reviewing the existing State and National guidelines for urban infrastructure on access and safety and holding consultations with the GCC engineers at zonal and headquarters levels across departments to identify the difficulties in implementing the forthcoming guidelines in the manual are part of the plan, according to a tender document.
Organising 12 participatory workshops and consultations with focus groups across the city covering different social groups, such as women vendors, stay-at-home mothers, daily commuters, park users, urban designers, Resident Welfare Association (RWA) presidents, representatives, councillors, transpersons, women with disabilities and women of different professions to get user feedback and wish lists is also in the scope.
Following this, areas of concern and potential improvements in safety, transportation, public spaces, and other aspects of urban life and suggested design inputs as well as practical checklists that can be incorporated will be mapped out, after which insights, recommendations, and best practices will be formulated into a comprehensive manual, the document stated.
