ila is fighting gender-based violence through human-centred design solutions
“In a post-Covid world, we need innovative and agile teams to make waves in purpose-led companies.”
– Julie Sane-Pezet, Co-Founder at ila
A UK-based social enterprise working with businesses to foster inclusion while empowering survivors of gender-based violence, ila is advancing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals while keeping positive impact at the top of their agenda.
1. Can you tell us more about ila’s mission, and why domestic violence has become even more of a pressing issue since Covid-19?
Our vision has always been to unleash people and organisations' potential by combatting discrimination where it hurts the most and being innovative in the way we approach business and collaboration. For us, this means working with corporations to improve their internal culture and activities from an Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) standpoint but also using human-centered design to support gender-based violence survivors.
In the UK, 4 weeks into the lockdown, calls to domestic abuse helplines had increased by 120%. Globally it is estimated that every 3 months of lockdown there will be 15 million cases of gender-based violence reported on top of the 243 million reported in 2019. This represents 1/3 of women and girls worldwide experiencing abuse in their lifetime and millions of men and boys facing it while being excluded from the conversation. For us, it's time for a change.
2. Tell us a bit about your initiative training supermarket employees to detect domestic abuse survivors amongst their customers.
We believe in the power of technology and training to build a more inclusive and informed society. Using human-centered design, we have created an application that combats domestic abuse by training retail staff to become allies and redirect victims towards help. For companies, it's a way to combine Learning & Development with social impact.
While the ALLY app was born out of a Covid response, ila's team is not new to working with gender-based violence. Prior to our pivot, we've worked with brands and organizations like UN Women, Unilever, WeWork and The London School of Economics. Our focus was still on skills-training but geared towards survivors of sexual violence; we would improve employee engagement for corporate staff by facilitating skills-training sessions with survivors. Now, with ALLY, our social enterprise has shifted our expertise to training retail staff in order to help domestic abuse victims instead.
“We believe in the power of technology and training to build a more inclusive and informed society’”
3. Could you explain how the ALLY app works, how it was developed, and how it serves retail staff as well as the survivors it sets out to help?
We have designed the app to be extremely engaging and interactive as we are aware we are training people on a sensitive topic and wanted the learning process to be as smooth as possible. The training in itself is organised in several modules that employees get to complete to be ALLY certified. For retail staff the app combines the benefits of L&D with the intrinsic motivation to have a positive impact on their communities, it increases their engagement and satisfaction at work, especially in the Covid context.
4. If we did come across a domestic abuse survivor in any setting, what’s the best way to help?
You should research the initiatives and programs available to support survivors around you - be it nation-wide initiatives or local ones - so that, if ever you come across a case of abuse, you are able to reach out to the right people. But keep in mind that escaping abuse is a personal decision. You can't force somebody to leave but you can assist once this decision has been taken. So, unless you witness a case where the person's life is clearly at stake, you should not take the initiative to send unwanted help to this person. Focus on showing openness whenever someone discloses signs of abuse and reach out to helplines to receive professional advice and see how you can support more efficiently.
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