After Her Friend Was Attacked at a Party, Neta Schreiber Built SafeUP

At a house party years ago, Neta Schreiber's friend went missing. They found her in a room, half-naked, fighting off two men — and getting there in time changed everything.  That moment became SafeUP, the app Israeli entrepreneur Neta Schreiber built to put a network of trained women "guardians" in your pocket — reachable instantly, by phone, video, or in person, when a woman feels unsafe. Today it connects roughly 100,000 women across dozens of countries, and it's designed to help women support each other without having to involve the police.  In this episode, Neta shares the story behind SafeUP, how the guardian network works, and her vision for a world where women look out for one another, everywhere.

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Transcript

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HOST (Jennifer) (00:02):

Hello, welcome to this podcast called Finding Inspiration. It's a 20 or so minute weekly podcast where we interview someone with an amazing story. After the show, I know you're going to feel energized, invigorated, and inspired. I'm Jennifer Weissmann. Welcome to Finding Inspiration.  There's not a woman in the world. Who's not walked down the street or through a parking garage and felt uncomfortable. Most women have experienced this at some point in their life. Come on, you know it, I know it too. Today we are talking about how to keep women feeling safe, protected, and empowered. Here's a statistic that should really frighten you. According to the CDC: one in five women have experienced actual or attempted rape in their lifetime and a real breeding ground for this problem is on college campuses.  There 13% of all women have been assaulted in only that short period of time in their lives. Remember – it’s just three to four years that they're on college campuses. That's a frightening statistic.  Today, we are talking about a new crowdsource community app designed to help women feel safe in the world. It's called SafeUp. It's in 39 countries. It's expanded to the United States, including New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Miami. It is a free app. It's simple to use. If a woman finds herself in a situation where she feels uncomfortable, she can open up the app, click on her live location, click to local guardians who can reach out to her. This is a game-changer in the world of women's safety and independence.  I'm very excited to speak to the founder of SafeUp Neta Schreiber.

Guest (Neta) (01:48):

Thank you for having me. SafeUp is a network of women's solidarity to prevent sexual harassment and for women to feel safer in their day-to-day life. We are just modernizing what women have done in history.   But we are doing this in a technologically advanced way.  Here is how it works. So first you need to register and we will check your profile and make sure that you are a woman because we want to make sure that the network is safe and it’s a women-only network. After that, you will see yourself on the map and you will see all the guardians in your area. And at that moment, you already know that you are not alone. There are women around you. They are your guardians.   Guardians are trained community members that are willing to help you. And then if you walk in the street, feeling unsafe, you just click on call guardian.   You hop onto a voice call or video call with your nearest guardian. They will see your live location and they will make sure that you are safe. They will accompany you on your way. If you will need it, they will come physically to help you. And if something becomes more complicated, they can add the police to the conversation.

HOST (Jennifer) (03:04):

Neta, I imagine there are times when women feel like, oh, geez, should I call the police? Or did I imagine this?

Guest (Neta) (03:10):

For sure. And you know, the police cannot help you in that situation because they need clear danger to come.   Police cannot come just because you are afraid in the street. So yes, many women don’t feel safe calling the police. Even if there is a real threat in their area.  Maybe someone is following them or something like that, they will think to themselves --- maybe it's in my head.  Also, you should know that in SafeUp – we never check why you need the help. If you click the button inside the app, you hop right onto a video or audio call with the three nearest guardians.  These are trained women that are available and ready to help you. And they will make sure that you are safer, you feel safe and you're really in a safe situation.

HOST (Jennifer) (04:03):

One of the key points here is that we all have our phones. They're with us 24 hours a day. And in the SafeUp app, the guardian can see your live location.

Guest (Neta) (04:13):

Yes. Just at the moment that you decided to hop onto a call with them, then at that moment, they will see your live location to be able to come to you physically, if you need it. 

HOST (Jennifer) (04:23):

Tell me a little bit more about the exact role of the guardian.

Guest (Neta) (04:27):

Here is a typical situation.  You are walking down the street, you click on the button, you hop onto the call with a guardian.  They take the situation that can be hard and even traumatic and make it easy and fun and make you laugh and relax.  They may tell you to go somewhere that there is lighter.  They will give you tools to focus on what makes you feel safer and not just focus on your anxiety.  

HOST (Jennifer) (04:59):

How did you come up with the idea for SafeUP? What's the history, what's the backstory?

Guest (Neta)  (05:05):

For me personally, I understand the meaning of feeling unsafe.  Ten years ago, when I was a teenager I went with some friends to a house party.   Suddenly at that party, I realized that one of my friends was missing and I start to look for it.   After that, I took another friend, and we were searching the house. And after a few minutes, we thought we heard a voice from inside a room.  We got closer to the door took a big breath and opened the door.  We found my friend and two guys in the middle of a struggle and my friend was half-naked. And at the moment that we entered the room -- those guys ran away.  

HOST (Jennifer) (05:51):

Wow, that sounds absolutely terrifying. You stopped your friend from being sexually assaulted.

Guest (Neta) (05:56):

Yes. You know, now I know to say we saved her life.   At that age, actually in every age, when a woman gets sexually assaulted or raped, she needs to start to rebuild her life from scratch.  It can really change your life.  

HOST (Jennifer) 06:10):

Did Corona have any effect at all on the number of assaults? 

Guest (Neta) (06:17):

Numbers are growing and growing up each day. And COVID just makes it more problematic.  

HOST (Jennifer) (06:26):

Is there a more vulnerable age group of women who are assaulted or raped?

Guest (Neta)  (06:31):

Yes – the most vulnerable age is between the ages of16 to 22.

HOST (Jennifer) (06:38):

Boy Neta. It is frightening. What's going on with SafeUp at campuses across the world? Do you have plans to roll it out?

Guest (Neta) (06:51):

We have entered college campuses through an ambassador program. And we actually already in three campuses in the USA, all the colleges in Israel and just entering the UK.    

HOST (Jennifer) (07:04):

Netta, how many women are actually using safe up today in 2022

Guest (Neta) (07:10):

Today we're over 100,000 active members in the world using SafeUp. The women actually feel safer in their day-to-day life because it's a tool to use.   Our members use SafeUP in their every day -- when you need outside in the dark. And you would do it without SafeUP but you may feel uncomfortable or you will call someone, or you will pretend you are speaking with someone.  Now with SafeUp, women have a new solution.   We have researched to see the impact of SafeUP on our members' life.  And we find most of the members report they are going outside five hours more per week. They say they have the courage to go outside and play more sports and hang out or maybe stay in the office later.

HOST (Jennifer) (08:09):

So your mission to ensure that women feel safe on the streets is working!  SafeUP is providing the feeling of independence for women to go out more.

Guest (Neta)  (08:21):

Yes. And it gives women more opportunities.

HOST (Jennifer) (08:23):

Neta, if we were sitting here in five years, what does success look like for this amazing app SafeUP?

Guest (Neta) (08:30):

We want to be on every women’s phone all over the world.  We want to create local communities where women of all walks of life -- to help each other. 

HOST (Jennifer) (08:40):

I love the idea, LOVE the idea of using my phone as a useful safety weapon. Of using technology to make women safer.   SafeUP is accessible to every woman. As the mother of a daughter, I feel so much more confident knowing that this type of technology is out there in the world. And I thank you so much for your time and wish you every continued success as you launch SafeUP around the world.  

GUEST (Neta) (09:09):

Please tell your daughter. Thank you, Jennifer.

HOST (Jennifer) (09:13):

Thank you for joining us this week on Finding Inspiration. Hey, I would appreciate it if you would click on that subscribe button and share this podcast with a friend.   See you next week. I'm Jennifer Weissmann.