“Intense sad.” Thomas Gerrits from Oosterhout mentions the murder of 17-year-old Lisa from Abcoude and the disturbing reporting around femicide. “It is a problem that we have to put an end to quickly,” he says. To give people a safer feeling on the street, he is now building the ‘Redderr’ app.
“We must all be able to go on the street safely. It is clear that, at least for women, that is currently not the case,” says 25-year-old Thomas from behind his laptop. The girlfriend of the young app builder also feels unsafe when she has to go on her own on her own in the evening. “We really have to tackle this.”
Thomas, who has been a software engineer for over seven years and previously worked for Bijenkorf, Green Choice and the Ministry of Defense, among others, feels responsible for that as a man. “If you deal with the subject of femicide, it is important to realize that it concerns men who commit these murders on women.” In the Netherlands this happens on average once every eight days.
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That is why Thomas came up with the app ‘Redderr’. The idea for this comes from Tiktokker Sam Margry and looks like the existing app My HartslagNu. He sends resuscitation calls to civilian helpers if someone in their neighborhood has a cardiac arrest. They can then help with CPR or get an automatic external defibrillator (AED).
Waiting for privacy settings …
In Thomas’ App ‘Redderr’ there will be an emergency button, which sends push notifications to contact persons and other users within one kilometer of your location. In this way there can quickly be civilian care providers on the spot in a situation where someone feels unsafe.
Speech memos are also automatically made, which can be used as evidence. In addition, he thinks about a buddy function that people can call in if they don’t only dare to go on the street alone. Similar to the Tilburg initiative ‘Safe Tilly End’.
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People can already call and chat with emergency help services and share their location with the control room via ‘112NL’. That app was downloaded at least 85,000 times in the week after Lisa’s murder. “But unfortunately we saw in the case of Lisa that that wasn’t enough,” says Thomas. The girl from Abcoude called 112 herself when she noticed that she was being chased. Unfortunately, help came too late and she was killed by violence.
With his app ‘Redderr’, Thomas hopes that people who are close to an unsafe situation can take action. “So that we can prevent situations like this.”
Waiting for privacy settings …
In the meantime, the video, in which Thomas explains his idea, has been viewed almost 43,000 times on Instagram. BN’ers such as Pip Pellens-Wessels (GTST) and Abbey Hoes (Costa!!) Shared it. “It makes me enthusiastic, but at the same time seriously sad,” says Thomas. “It indicates that this sticks to people, but also that it is important that this will come.”
Some people see apps as ‘Redderr’, on the other hand, as ‘a license for total idiots to slap people together’, writes Powned. Malicious people could also sign up to find easily vulnerable girls.
Thomas therefore hopes for a collaboration with the Dutch government, so that he can link his app to DigiD. That is the system with which the Dutch government can verify someone’s identity. With that implementation, ‘Redderr’ can see, among other things, whether someone has a declaration of behavior. “That way we can filter people and that can stop the app abuse,” thinks Thomas.
“But it really makes people feel safe when we talk to each other how we can prevent unsafe situations,” he says. “We hope that this app can be a plaster over it.”
‘Redderr’ must be available as quickly as possible, but it is first investigated how user safety can be guaranteed. That is why Thomas cannot yet say when the app can be downloaded.
