CSI News South Africa

Grapevine Interactive donates technology to assist rape survivors

In collaboration with Cape-Town-based NGO, Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust, Grapevine Interactive has developed and is hosting a mobile internet site to assist both rape survivors and their caregivers.

The site has been developed using Grapevine's award-winning iLoop Mobile mobi platform and the entire development, ongoing maintenance and hosting has been provided free-of-charge to Rape Crisis as part of Grapevine's social responsibility program.

Cliff Court, Grapevine's chief technology officer said, "After speaking with the team at Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust, it became clear that survivors often don't know what steps to take after such a terrible event. We felt that we could donate our technology and skills to provide easily-accessible information to these victims on their cellphone or a friend's phone, and hopefully make a positive contribution to their predicament in their greatest time of need"

Aiming to make things as easy as possible

Many victims are justifiably intimidated at the prospect of reporting their case. The mobi site details the steps that one should take, and what should happen at each stage. By explaining what to expect at the police station, what tests may occur and how the legal process proceeds, it is hoped the information on the mobi site will ease, what is already, a difficult process.

"We are indebted to Grapevine Interactive for affording us this amazing tool. With it, we will be able to support and extent our service offerings to more survivors of rape, and we hope to make their healing process easier. What we also appreciate is that it enhances the function of our website, but on a user-friendly manner for mobile phones with a tailor made look and feel to it," said Kathleen Dey, director at the Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust.

The mobi site is free to access, but mobile networks (Vodacom, MTN, Cell C etc.) will charge for the data. Such data cost are likely to be a few cents to view several pages.

The site URL is rapecrisis.mobi.

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