There’s a new service that eliminates the fear of walking home alone

You’ve seen the statistics. You’ve heard the stories. You’ve read the articles. With cases like Brock Turner’s and documentaries like “The Hunting Ground,” sexual assault and sexual violence has garnered a tremendous amount of media attention recently. We are more than aware it’s a problem that isn’t going to disappear any time soon.

We are left with questions: How do we stop it? Is there a way to tackle a societal problem this large? Awareness is great, but conversations about plausible solutions rarely make headlines.

Daniel Reji, a senior at Rutgers, is trying to put a dent in this monstrous problem with his new service called SafeHalo. Whether you’re walking home from the library late at night, or trying to make it home from a party, you can text SafeHalo and within minutes, two volunteer students will be there to walk you home.

“SafeHalo is a judgement free, stigma free way for students to get help this Fall on Friday nights from 10pm to 2am. You text us and within seven or eight minutes depending on where you are, you’ll have two Halos which are just friendly, social students that will come get you. They won’t ask you any intrusive questions. It’s just like having two best friends show up when you need them the most.”

Daniel’s passion for combatting sexual assault and sexual violence is fairly recent. After writing a research paper about sexual assault on college campuses last spring, Daniel began to understand not only the magnitude and prevalence of this issue, but also that there weren’t many conceivable solutions.

“As young people, we can look at the problem from a unique perspective. If you’re older or not a college student, you might look at it and say if there are more sexual assaults, just add more security. That’s a logical answer. But when you actually look at it as a student, what’s really holding you back from asking for help? Is it that there isn’t enough security? That’s not true. There is so much security here at Rutgers. As a student, I can answer that question because I know it personally. When I try to solve problems, I always try to identify not only a problem, but what the real cause or root of this problem is. Sexual assaults on campus – 80 percent of them are acquaintances or people that they already know. We’re not saying that we’re going to magically solve that. That would be irresponsible to say. But you have to look at that 20 percent as well.”

Based on his own experiences, Daniel realized that having to walk home alone at night provoked a certain amount of anxiety or fear. He also figured that students might not feel comfortable calling the police for a walk home because it might not be considered a “serious situation.” His older sister who went to Rutgers would occasionally call him when she was on her way home from the library in order to feel safer.

“It’s concerning when she’s walking home from the library and she needs someone to be on the line with her because if someone attacks her there will be someone ‘there.’ She’s banking on the fact that I’ll hear her needing help. I would rather it just not be an issue.”

The concept of having two Halos walk a student home was based on Daniel’s initial research when he discovered that the likelihood of being attacked goes down drastically when one is in a group of three people or more. Once you text SafeHalo, Daniel or Jamie will answer (you will always be texting one of them, not a bot), and then they will dispatch two Halos to come walk you home.

“[The Halos] are always going to be in male/female pairs so that it’s not uncomfortable for the student regardless of their gender or their sexual orientation – it’s always going to be balanced. For example, a girl might feel uncomfortable having two males walk her home. We want to keep it balanced and we always want it to feel comfortable.”

Currently, SafeHalo is comprised of four central team members. Daniel and one of his closest friends, Ryan, worked tirelessly for a year to construct a sustainable and efficient business model for the program while Daniel’s other friend Tim worked as the lead creative. And then, Daniel met Jamie, who is now a Halo Director.

“Jamie has been the greatest asset to SafeHalo so far. That’s when it became real. I interviewed her because she wanted to be a Halo. I called her and it was a great interview. Then, two or three hours later, she responded back and said, ‘I really love what you’re doing. Can I help out in a bigger way?’ Now she’s our Communications Director and she has been so crucial. It’s so hard to do this on your own. It became so real when I had a partner to do this with, and it’s really great to have a team.”

SafeHalo received upwards of 70 Halo applications over the summer. After the initial screening, Daniel ended up interviewing 45 applicants and hand selecting 22 students to be the very first group of Halos.

“These are all student volunteers. They’re just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Right now, we can’t pay them. I’ve been using my internship money to fund the whole program, but we have 22 really good people. We had an orientation and they all got to meet each other. It was really, really fun. They got to talk to each other – we ran through some scenarios. I put them on the spot and we went through various simulations, bad situations, good situations. It was kind of like an informal training session to see how they would respond in certain situations. I told the Halos they’re most likely never going to know the people that they pick up. But I said when you arrive at that scene, that’s your best friend. For the seven minutes you’re walking them home, that is your best friend.”

After speaking with some Rutgers administration members, students and parents, Daniel and his team received plenty of positive feedback. However, this fall will primarily be viewed as a pilot program as a means of collecting data. Following this semester, the goal is to start a GoFundMe to raise money and to show the administration at Rutgers this is a service that students actually use and depend on. Daniel has high hopes for SafeHalo and wants to not only launch SafeHalo at other Big 10 schools, but is also aiming to implement it at 100 universities by 2021.

“It is a pressing issue on every college campus. We really think this could work for a lot of different universities. I’m graduating this year and my hope is that I can run this company and go to a bunch of different schools. This has been my passion ever since I wrote that research paper. It was really eye opening and I knew I had to do this.”

SafeHalo officially launched at Rutgers on September 9th. Daniel could not have been more excited.

“We don’t know if we’re going to have a hundred calls this semester or three. And we’re completely okay with three. I told all the Halos, we do not measure success by number of calls. I measure success by the fact that there are 22 amazing students that care enough to be out here as Halos. We want to be in everyone’s back pocket. We don’t want anyone walking home feeling like they’re totally alone.”

You can add SafeHalo to your contacts by filling out a quick form on their website.  If you’d like to get involved as a Halo, have any questions, comments or concerns, feel free to email Daniel or Jamie at: [email protected] and [email protected]. Keep up with them on social media @wearesafehalo.