AN upgraded app has been launched by a non-profit organisation based in Bahrain dedicated to women’s empowerment and protection across the Middle East.
Shamsaha’s App 2.0 offers better navigation, enhanced privacy and safety features, a simplified chat interface and improved access to the organisation’s 24/7 crisis support in English and Arabic.
The app was first launched three years ago.
The app’s interface
“The updated app marks a major milestone in Shamsaha’s mission to empower women by providing confidential, accessible and culturally sensitive support – behind closed doors and behind closed borders,” said Shamsaha founder and chief executive Dr Mary-Justine Todd.
“App 2.0 builds on years of field experience and user feedback and allows us to reach even more women,” added the PhD holder in International Law from Leicester University, highlighting that 25 per cent of women will experience violence at some point in their lives.
In January last year, the organisation added new resources, including information on legal help, therapy, police contact details, as well as ‘survivor support tools’ explaining the cycle of abuse, safety plans and more to its application.
The app, which has been developed in collaboration with Bahraini software development company RainCode, can be downloaded for free on Apple and Android devices.
Shamsaha (‘Her Sun’) is the only existing gender-based violence crisis advocacy response programme in the Middle East and is operational in 10 countries. It has tie-ups with women’s organisations and support groups in all the six Gulf states, as well as in Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Sudan.
The organisation was founded in 2016 and has since been dedicated to supporting survivors of domestic abuse through its 24/7 mobile app-based crisis response, advocacy and empowerment programmes.
Shamsaha has more than 100 trained volunteers. More than 75,000 women in the Middle East and North Africa region have benefited from the charity.
For more information, visit www.shamsaha.org.
&uuid=(email))