The Power of Uniting Armenian Women Globally

What is Safe YOU?

Safe YOU is a mobile application and platform that helps women (its beneficiaries) in everyday life and in times of danger. It also helps stakeholders in the field have a more effective and collaborative impact on their beneficiaries.

Safe YOU provides an SOS button that once pressed allows women the possibility to contact up to 7 pre-chosen contacts with an emergency message and their geo-location. Additionally, when the SOS button is pressed, the application begins to record their surroundings for use as proof of incident. As a social tool, Safe YOU provides a forum space where stakeholders can share information, resources and consultations (individual professionals like lawyers or psychologists). In these forums, beneficiaries can access wide varieties of information and advice in a free online space. Finally Safe YOU provides beneficiaries with up-to-date information and mapping of service providers and state authorities that may be useful to them.

As a platform Safe YOU is useful to service providers and other stakeholders as it enables a wide variety of tools to reach beneficiaries as well as analyze anonymous data that can further help them in the fight against VAW. Safe YOU works to enhance existing solutions and service providers while enabling a safe environment and community for all impacted parties.?

AIWA and Safe YOU?

The Armenian International Women’s Association (AIWA) is dedicated to the ‘advancement of Armenian women, regardless of their political, religious or educational affiliation.’ As the only international organization dedicated to this cause, AIWA’s work within the global community is extremely necessary, impactful and inspiring.?

AIWA has been encouraging Mariam and the Safe YOU platform since 2021. In early October last year, Mariam was invited to the US to attend AIWA’s 30th Anniversary Symposium on “Uniting Women Globally.” This symposium was conducted through both a one day event in-person, and multiple virtual events to ensure that all Armenian women globally could be connected. The in-person event in California consisted of several panels on a variety of topics. This included Armenian women in technology, Armenian women influencers, and Armenian women affecting change.?

Mariam spoke on the panel on Women Affecting Change. Safe YOU is very grateful to AIWA for providing this platform, and believes that the importance of women in technology and innovation cannot be overstated. Women in these fields not only should be driving change, but empowering and inspiring others to do the same.?

Henceforth, AIWA representative Zela Astarjian visited the Safe YOU office in Armenia for a follow up meeting to discuss how best each group could support each other in fulfilling their missions.?

It is extremely important that Armenian women from the diaspora unite with women living in Armenia to lift each other up and support each other’s endeavors. The knowledge sharing that these meaningful partnerships bring is paramount to Armenian women’s empowerment across the globe.?

Through AIWA and Safe YOU sharing a mission to advocate for women’s safety and empowerment, Armenian women worldwide will continue to connect and empower each other to drive innovation and change globally.?

Mariam’s history

Mariam Torosyan founded Impact Innovations Institute after the inception of Safe YOU, a tech startup aimed at solving global social issues through innovation.?

The concept of Safe YOU came to her after years of experience in the field as a lawyer and social anthropologist, but in particular following a pivotal conversation with a family friend.?

“One day while I was pregnant, a family friend, an older woman, came up to me and said I looked so beautiful I must be carrying a son. When I informed her I was having a daughter she became visibly upset and began to console me. She told me not to worry, that the next one would be a boy.”

For Mariam, this conversation inspired her to create a tool that would change the world and make it a safer place where women would feel valued and wanted. As a lawyer, Mariam had often worked with women in difficult situations and had always found that there were gaps in infrastructure, knowledge and accessibility for these women. She developed Safe YOU as a response to these gaps, and as a piece of technology she saw as missing in the field of Violence Against Women (VAW).?