A group of University of Calgary accelerated MBA students is looking at bringing a Safewalk program to the downtown core.

The group focused in on downtown core safety as part of their entrepreneurial thinking class. They identified that not all Calgarians feel safe walking through the core.

“There’s an obvious need here—people are feeling uncomfortable,” said Ryan Foulkes, one of the group’s members.

The idea began after Ranjita Sunuwar, another one of the group’s members, brought up that people working downtown, like her, don’t always feel safe at night.

“Pre-pandemic, and post-pandemic, I feel like people are more like scared now versus before when downtown used to be more lively,” she said.

The University of Calgary offers Safewalk to students, staff, and visitors to their downtown campus locations. But this service is only available within campus boundaries for insurance reasons. Safewalk programs provide a person a safe escort when walking from one location to another.

The group’s survey found that 81 per cent of respondents sometimes felt unsafe walking alone downtown.

They’re now looking for additional feedback at SafeWalkCalgary@Outlook.com to see if Calgarians would use a downtown Safewalk service.