Guardians offer sense of security
A NEW DEVICE THAT EMPLOYS A NETWORK OF GUARDIANS IS PROVIDING PARENTS EXTRA ASSURANCE WHEN SENDING THEIR CHILDREN OUT TO PLAY, WRITES PASCO ROGATO
A CHILD facing possible abduction.
A woman fighting off an attacker.
A senior citizen lying on the floor after a fall.
All these people could potentially benefit from the use of a newly available “fit-bit style” bracelet, which sends an emergency alert to family, friends and a network of guardians.
It’s a case of a push of a button making all the difference to a person’s life.
Safelet, developed by a Netherlands-based company, has been brought to the Far North by James Mousa, director of financial advisory company Life Sumo.
“We, Life Sumo as an organisation, have always had passion for improving people’s safety,” Mr Mousa said.
“We spend a lot of time working on people’s financial wellbeing, but until people feel safe, you can’t think about those other things.
“Violence against women has been a big concern for us, male privilege issues have been a big concern, we have been very vocal about it, but haven’t been in a position to do anything about it.”
The alleged murder of Cairns woman Toyah Cordingley last October once again highlighted an abject failure of our society – violence against women.
The statistics are frightening. Last year (2018) on average, more than one woman a week has died as a result of domestic violence.
“You can’t become complacent,” Mr Mousa said.
“The problem with this country is that the abuse of women and the death of women (as a result of violence) is Australia’s ‘gun laws’ argument. We get on our high horse about the American’s gun laws and we like to think we are so superior because we don’t have the shootings they have over there, but then we have something so simple as looking after our women and children and we can’t do it.
“More than 60 women were murdered last year (2018), and 18 children.
“This is not just about Toyah, it is about the fact anybody can find themselves in a vulnerable situation.
“I would not advocate that a Safelet would have saved Toyah’s life, but what it could have done is notified people much earlier there was a problem and she might have been able to identify her attacker using the audio recording.
“People think it will never happen to me; no-one it ever happens to thinks it could happen to them.”
Safelet looks much like a fitbit and when activated sends an emergency alert and shows the exact location of the sender to their network of friends and family, along with every guardian within 500m.
It also has a microphone that is triggered on activation which records up to five minutes of audio.
A person can invite through social networks or an email as many people as she wants to join their ‘guardian network’.
Cairns mum Kristy Vallely, founder of The Imperfect Mum, purchased a Safelet for her 12-year-old daughter Maya.
“My daughter is nearly 13 and with that comes a lot more independence, so I wanted to ensure she’s safe,” Mrs Vallely said. “She has a phone, but it’s
not as quick and effective as the Safelet.
“Just being able to press a button that alerts her network really makes me feel relieved.
“I think the major benefit is that it alerts her network immediately; she’s not trying to call someone and they don’t answer etc.
“The other big drawcard is the recording feature so if, God forbid, something happens it would record it.”
Mrs Vallely said she has genuine safety concerns for children, but the Safelet provided some piece of mind.
“There have been some really terrible things happen to kids in shopping centres and food outlets lately,” she said. “As a parent it’s very frightening. I want my kids to have a carefree life and I want them to be able to experience what I did as a kid growing up, so that Safelet allows that to happen.”
Mr Mousa said the Safelet had safety applications for a range of people, not just women and children.
“There are four categories of people it works well with,” he said. “One is children, but it does have to be paired with a smart phone. So if your child is old enough to have a phone they should have one.
“We often dismiss men – we don’t think men would be ideal.
“But that is not true. Anyone who wants to feel more secure should have that device.
“Third is women as a target group. “Fourth is elderly people. “If you are an elderly person who is at home and you’ve had a fall and broken your hip, or even had a heart attack, you might not be able to reach your phone but by triggering the alert on the Safelet means your network will know you are in trouble straight away.”
Mr Mousa said the guardian network was beneficial as it