PledgeGuard

Report. Protect. Prevent. Together, turning bystanders into protectors.

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PledgeGuard

Combatting child marriage with community-powered anonymous reporting.

Problem & Inspiration

Currently, 1 in 5 young women are married before they are 18 years old. The rate of child marriages is even higher in underserved communities where intervention often comes too late. These cases are also rarely reported — not because people don’t care, but because they feel powerless or unsafe speaking out.

As a teenage girl passionate about gender equality and innovating technology for positive change, I wanted to build a tool that puts power in the hands of everyday people — empowering them to speak up anonymously, pledge support, and intervene early.

What it does

PledgeGuard is an iOS app designed to prevent child marriage through community accountability. It allows users to:

  • Anonymously report suspected or known cases in their area
  • Interact with reports from all around the world
  • Take small actions to help bring change and awareness
  • Check in on suspected cases near them
  • View impact reports showing real-time pledges and reports by region
  • Get region-based alerts of child marriage risks
  • Access reliable, localized resources
  • Track personal impact over time
  • Pledge support and commit to protecting girls — building a community of trust and action

User-Centered Design

PledgeGuard was built around trust, safety, and inclusivity, especially for users in vulnerable or underserved communities. Every design choice reflects empathy, accessibility, and ease of use:

  • Privacy by default: No account is required to report or pledge. Optional anonymous sign-ins are supported via Firebase Auth, with no personal data stored or tracked, ensuring safety for users in sensitive environments.
  • Calming intentional UI: A distinct and clear color palette and universal icons promote calm and clarity. Navigation is deliberately simple to reduce cognitive load, especially for first-time or distressed users.
  • Built for accessibility: All text is high-contrast, large-font, and screen-reader compatible. The interface dynamically adapts to system-level accessibility settings (e.g. bold text, reduced motion), and key flows are translated into languages spoken in high-risk regions.
  • Low-literacy optimized: Typing is minimized with large, tappable buttons, pre-filled options, and voice interaction in future phases. CTAs are written in plain supportive language.
  • Optimized for low-bandwidth: The app is fully mobile-first, lightweight, and offline-tolerant to support rural or low-connectivity environments.
  • Supportive, not scary: Instead of focusing only on reporting, users are invited to take small, low-pressure pledges, promoting things like checking in on a friend or sharing resources, creating a sense of community and shared responsibility, and reducing the intimidation that often goes along with taking action.

SDG Alignment

SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

  • Target 5.3 – Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation
    > PledgeGuard directly supports early intervention and anonymous reporting to help prevent child marriage through community-driven action.

SDG 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

  • Target 10.2 – Empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status
    > Empowers and includes vulnerable young girls at risk of child marriage and enables people from all backgrounds to take part in protection efforts.

How I built it

Tech Stack

  • Frontend: Swift + SwiftUI
  • Backend: Firebase Firestore + Firebase Auth
  • Location Services: CoreLocation + CLGeocoder

All data is stored anonymously. Firebase handles real-time updates for impact summaries and notifications, helping users see the collective power of their actions instantly.

What I learned

  1. How to design for user safety and trust, especially around sensitive topics
  2. Firebase integration and real-time data aggregation
  3. Ensuring accessibility and surpassing language barriers (basic multi-language support)
  4. Translating a social justice mission into technical design — how tech can empower community action

Challenges I faced

  • Balancing anonymity, user trust, and action in the app design
  • Implementing location services and region-based notifications
  • Designing a UI that was simple and intuitive for all ages and literacy levels
  • Translating critical features (pledge, reports, alerts) into 15+ languages for global impact

What's next for PledgeGuard

  • Add voice reporting functionality
  • Enable real-time, location-based alerts and notifications
  • Add more authorization for actions such as resolving reports to ensure accuracy/safety
  • Expand to all languages (currently only translate critical components to languages of countries that are leading the top 10 with the most child marriage cases)
  • Adding more resources/helplines depending on location
  • Use AI to detect regional trends and identify emerging at-risk zones (use analyzed data to choose which locations to target)
  • Expand to Android and web platforms to reach more users
  • Launch in regions with high child marriage rates in partnership with NGOs, local governments, and UN authorities
  • Publish the app on the App Store after expanding features (this version is the MVP)

PledgeGuard turns silence into action.

When scaled and grown, PledgeGuard is a simple but powerful tool with real potential to protect girls, build community accountability, and advance the global movement to end child marriage.

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