Plett abuzz with safety app

PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - The community safety app Buzzer recently announced it has teamed up with Plettenberg Bay security role players to roll out the app in Plett after it proved invaluable in Cape Town and surrounds.

While the local community has been using the application for a while, it is now officially being rolled out as a crime-fighting tool.

Keri Cross, director and founder of the Buzzer app, said all across South Africa people invest a lot of time, money and effort to keep themselves and their families safe in their own homes.

"Walls, burglar bars, dogs, alarms, private security companies, and even cameras and ingenious hi-tech security systems are abundant. However, when something happens in our streets or when we are out and about, who can we rely on? Governmental emergency response organisations are often unreliable, inefficient or even completely unavailable in some areas. Many neighbourhoods turn to safety WhatsApp groups - which have their own challenges, including the irritations of trivial chitchat and the risks of spreading hatred and division," Cross said.

She explained that the Buzzer community app was the solution thought up by a team of pro-active Hout Bay residents. It has since taken Cape Town by storm and has thousands of active users from all parts of town: from the lush valley areas and CBDs, to the Cape Town townships.

"We needed a solution that could efficiently connect neighbours to neighbours and to the local security service providers. Given the size of the security market in our country, we expected that an off-the shelf solution would be somewhere out there, but to our surprise there was nothing that suited our needs."

The mother of two young girls, and her business partner Jessica Boonstra decided to organise a workshop with representatives from all different local communities. Together with local emergency responders and the residents, they co-designed their ideal process in case of an incident and this became the blueprint for the Buzzer app.

"We wanted to build a solution that is freely accessible for everyone, not just for the happy few who can afford a private security company or an expensive app subscription," Boonstra said.

She added that Buzzer had teamed up with Plett Security to bring this community safety app, that has been used with "fantastic success" in and around Cape Town over the past two years.

"Buzzer is a free community safety tool, built specifically for both community and private response. Buzzer gives users a personal SOS button and also has a Report function for crimes, fires, suspicious activity - the list goes on. All alerts made through the app go directly to Plett Security and your neighbours. The SOS and Report features work in green belts, parks and most nearby mountain areas that have cellphone signals, making the app great for hikers, walkers and riders too."

Buzzer places all emergency services into one place and eliminates not knowing who to turn to for help.