Public spaces belong to everyone. Yet in practice, not everyone can access them equally. For women, questions of safety and visibility often shape whether they feel free to walk, work, or simply spend time in public. Durga India is an organization working to change this. Their programs build safer, more inclusive communities by reframing safety as a collective responsibility, not just a women’s issue.
When they joined the Dalgo Bootcamp – a two-day, hands-on program where NGOs work on their own data alongside a dedicated Dalgo point of contact (POC) – it became clear how much data could strengthen their mission. We spoke to Monika Rajashekar, Operations Lead at Durga India, about that journey.
Why Safety is Everyone’s Responsibility
Monika explains:
“(At Durga India), we believe that public spaces belong to everyone — and everyone should be able to use them freely, whether for leisure, work, or transit. Right now, only a certain set of people are able to use them, and women often cannot use them in the same way men can.”
She adds that the foremost barrier for women is not infrastructure, but the constant calculation of safety.
“The foremost reason why a woman is not able to use a public space is because she is still thinking, how safe am I if I am in the public space? And she is also not seeing many women out there.”
Durga’s approach is to flip that framing: safety is everyone’s responsibility.
Why Data Matters
This philosophy naturally led them to data.
“If I need to talk to the system about what’s working or what’s not, data-driven evidence helps me make that case. And if I want to tell a woman she can occupy public spaces, I should also show her the data — how many women are already out there, who all are around, how many people are contributing to making the space safer.”
Durga had always collected large amounts of data. The opportunity lay in turning that raw information into something visual and accessible — something that could tell stories, not just sit in spreadsheets. That’s exactly the kind of gap the Dalgo Bootcamp was built to address. NGOs come in with raw program needs and leave with their first working dashboards, but built on their own data.
Enter Dalgo
For Durga, the discovery of Dalgo felt timely. Already using Glific, adopting Dalgo was a natural next step.
“We stumbled upon Dalgo and it just became something we were looking for a long time — a way to visualize our data, to see it as it’s generated, and to make it accessible for anyone who wants to understand safety perspectives.”
Bootcamp in Practice
Monika spoke about one clear use case for their data: tracking behavior change in their cohorts of men and women.
“For this behavior change it becomes very important to track where they start and where they lead to. We always had the data, but we didn’t have the visualization. At the Bootcamp, when we shared this, Dalgo said, “Let’s do it together.”
The Bootcamp pairs every participating NGO with a dedicated Dalgo POC, who helps them shape dashboards, transformations, and workflows over the two days. Rajalakshmi R, Learnings and Outcomes Lead at Durga India, shared her experience of working closely with their Dalgo POC, Himanshu Dube:
“Our Dalgo SPOC, Himanshu Dube, was super patient, helpful, and approachable in understanding our requirements and challenges. He helped us envision how Dalgo could support us — not just in creating dashboards, but in showing how data works in the transform stage. That allowed us to see Dalgo not only as a visualization platform, but also as an analytical tool.”
What We Learnt from Durga India
Durga’s Bootcamp journey illustrates the balance we aim for: NGOs bring real program challenges, and Dalgo provides the structure, tools, and support to test solutions in just two days. It’s not about leaving with a finished dashboard alone – it’s about rethinking how data can serve your mission. Monika shares:
“The two days here just made us feel there’s a lot more we learned, a lot more we visualized. This was just the start, because when we saw other organizations building even more, we realized our journey has just begun.”
For Durga, that mission is safer public spaces. For us, the takeaway was clear: the real impact of a Bootcamp lies in connecting technology back to the lived realities NGOs are trying to change.
Interested in our next Bootcamp?
We run them periodically with limited spots. Fill out an early expression of interest here, and we’ll get in touch when applications open. You can email us at support@dalgo.org or book a 30-minute call with us here to learn more about Dalgo.
