Following the recent Terrorist attacks in Garissa, a few noble initiatives have come up such as the notforgotten.co.ke website that seeks to cherish the memories of the individuals. Makeshift, a Nailab initiative have come together and created an app called Kaa Rada with the intent of making everyone a citizen police. The application aims to solve the situation of lack of security by having a reporting mechanism through crowd sourcing. The application further allows the users to get in touch with various police hotlines to report crime.
The application is currently available on Android and there are plans in the future to get it on Windows and iOS. Through the application information – including the location of the crime, when it happened and the victim’s personal details, are then passed on to a local police station or the police headquarters. The information also serves to alert other users of the crime. We tried the Application and have no qualms about it so far except the bit where one has to manually add the location. We believe it will help improve levels of unreported crime and ensure the police and the public are informed on crimes.
The Home Page
The app presents a simplistic but well done Homepage. It carries a message commemorating the victims of the Garissa attack before ushering the user into the world of Crime reporting. Users are prompted to sign in using their phone numbers. The user then creates a password and has the option of bypassing all these features and instead sign up via Facebook.
Report Alerts and Hotline Numbers
The core of the app’s ecosystem, this feature allows the user to see report alerts made by other users of the application.
To the far right of the application, ushers in a call button that allows the user to access the various police hotlines.
Make A Report
With most of the information being crowd sourced, the make a report feature allows for the users to report various crimes and situations through the application. This feature allows the user to use a photo, video, voice or text to report the crime. It also allows the user to select the category of the crime they wish to report.
The user then makes a report of the crime including adding its location before submitting it. The information is then published on the application and users receive alerts on the same. Later on, the user has ability to update the information on the status report of the crime such as if police make an arrest or come to the crime scene.
Conclusion
Kaa Rada is a decent application, simple to use and with a good UI. With time we hope the application allows the user to receive alerts for a specified location. The application would also serve as a useful tool for community policing. You can download the application here and rate it.
