Child Protection India Project #19656

Help prevent sexual abuse of children in India

by ARPAN

Help prevent sexual abuse of children in India

Project Report | Oct 19, 2022
Did you miss us?

By Fahim Ansari | Project Leader

WhatsApp Image 2022-10-19 at 10.53.30.jpeg

Achieved outreach of 19,764 through Personal Safety Education, Training,

Digital Learning Programmes and Partnerships.

Accomplished reach of 61,12,946 through Digital, Social, Broadcast and Print Media

with an engagement rate of 8.94% on Instagram.

Under National Education Policy our recommendations have been incorporated

into the National Curriculum Framework on the topic of Health, well-being, yoga,

sports and fitness by the states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

We will now be implementing our Personal Safety Education programme in the

Udaipur district of Rajasthan under the Beti Bachaao Beti Padhaaoo programme

from the Women Child Development Department initiative.

Please write to us at communications@arpan.org.in with your suggestions and

feedback to make this newsletter better.

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Jun 22, 2022
Reflections of Financial Year 2021-2022

By Fahim Ansari | Project Leader

For all of us at Arpan, the financial year 2021-2022 was unique, demanding, and exhilarating. And while we navigated these turbulent times with tech-enabled solutions, we also adopted a hybrid model. Despite being in a humanitarian crisis, we took opportunities to grow. We continued to make a difference through Personal Safety Education Programme (PSE), Training and Advocacy Programme, Digital Learning Programme, Public Engagement and Awareness and Mental Health Services.

Through a hybrid (online and offline) model, the PSE programme educated and empowered children from first to tenth grades to participate in their own safety. Along with external stakeholders like parents, caregivers and teachers, school partners were also engaged and trained to create a safe environment for children. Under this programme:

This year, Arpan's advocacy efforts focused on broadening its geographical reach to state and national levels. The major intention was to integrate the Personal Safety Education Programme in State and National Curriculums to ensure that children across the country receive consistent reiteration of key Personal Safety Messages.

- School Health & Wellness Program (SH&WP) under Ayushman Bharat - Under SH&WP, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Hon. Ministry of Education, Arpan is a member of the National Resource Group and has contributed to curriculum/modules. Arpan trained 521 teachers who in turn have trained 2.1 lakh Health & Wellness Ambassadors (HWA) across 28 states / UTs.

- Rashtriya Kishore Swasthya Karykram - Being a member of the National Resource Group under the RKSK program, we trained 1933 Adolescent Health Counsellors & Medical Officers from various states.

- Curriculum framework development work under National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 - Arpan was part of the State-Focus Group Discussions and contributed to position papers on state curriculum framework in 5 states (Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttrakhand) for National Educational Policy (NEP) 2020.

- Other than the National Curriculum Framework work at the state level, Arpan has successfully partnered with Chhattisgarh & Maharashtra state education departments.

- In Chhattisgarh, Arpan was part of state initiative namely "Baalika Sashaktikaran". Under this initiative, the module on girl empowerment was developed for state-wide implementation. Personal Safety Education module was also integrated into the School Safety program (Govt. of India initiative) while making the programme more comprehensive for statewide implementation.

- In the state of Maharashtra, Personal Safety Education was integrated into the State's Child Protection module for state wide rollout and implementation.

- In addition to this, Arpan trained over 18,700 professionals in Personal Safety Education programme. These trained participants were further provided hand-holding and support to conduct effective Personal Safety Education sessions with children and adults in their settings.

Arpan is one of the few organizations working at various levels to facilitate the healing journey of Child Sexual Abuse victims and their families. This year, Arpan provided psychotherapeutic services to children and adults from diverse settings.

Arpan's E-learn platform (www.arpanelearn.com) is our free-to-avail online platform with engaging & age-appropriate modules on Personal Safety for children. It also has content for parents, teachers & adult caregivers so that they can learn more about Child Sexual Abuse, recognize symptoms, and handle disclosures.

This year, we reached out to more than 170,000 individuals with our digital resources, either self-availed on Arpan's E-learn platform or through partner platforms like DIKSHA and Innerwheel District 314. DIKSHA is a national platform for school education, an initiative of the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT), Ministry of Education, GoI and Innerwheel District 314 is a part of Innerwheel Club of Mumbai, an International Organization which was started in the year 1924 with the objective of friendship & service to the society.

We are proud to announce that Arpan's Personal Safety Courses for 8 to 10-year-old and 11 to 13-year-old are now being broadcasted on SWAYAM PRABHA, an initiative of the Hon. Ministry of Human Resources Development to provide 34 High-Quality Educational Channels through DTH (Direct to Home) across the length and breadth of the country on a 24X7 basis.

With a vision of a world free from Child Sexual Abuse, Arpan proposes to create awareness and sensitization through public advocacy and communication campaigns. The highlight of this year was the third edition of Child Safety Week (November 14th to November 20th, 2021). It was an action-packed week. Despite all the limitations that the pandemic brought, more than 160 partners excitedly conducted diverse activities like community-wide awareness seminars with adults and children, training sessions, holding art-based workshops to educate children about personal safety and workshops on slogan-writing and pledge-taking. Tweet-chats, Webinars, Facebook & Instagram Lives, and frequent content sharing kept social media buzzing all week, generating millions of impressions. This year too, the Child Safety Week got the trust and support of 18 most well-known celebrities, artists, and parenting influencers. Aside from that, several other experts in critical positions in the government and non-government sectors were fervent champions who helped increase the decibel through their networks. The fact that four survivor voices echoed the fundamental ideas of 'Personal Safety' was incredibly encouraging. The media was highly receptive throughout the week, giving Child Safety Week and the partners' events the coverage they deserved. Child Safety Week was also taken up and observed by various government departments at the local, state, and national levels - 12 states and 1 Union Territory across India.

A detailed report can be found HERE.

We also organized and participated in a variety of online initiatives. Through 47 interactive sessions, including a webinar with Ms Vidya Balan, the total reach was more than 60,000. Ms Pooja Taparia was featured on the cover of Hershey's chocolate for their special celebration for Women's Day, which was the highlight of the year.

With optimism and confidence, we look forward to working toward our vision of "A World Free of Child Sexual Abuse" in the New Financial Year.

Do stay with us on this journey, encouraging and supporting us in every way you can. Your unwavering support and belief in our efforts motivate us to keep working harder to make the world free of Child Sexual Abuse.

Please write to us at communications@arpan.org.in with your suggestions and feedback to make this newsletter better.

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Mar 1, 2022
The Third Quarter of 2021 - 22 A Snapshot

By Fahim Ahmed Ansari | Project Leader

Introduction

For us at Arpan, the third quarter of FY 2021-22 is one of the most exciting time of the year because all the teams come together to work towards Child Safety Week (14th - 20th November). You may be aware that Child Safety Week is a people-led movement initiated by Arpan in 2019 with the goal of bringing organisations and individuals together to mainstream dialogues around Child Sexual Abuse and raise awareness. We are proud to say, this year's event was also a big success and we have a glimpse of it later in the newsletter.

While schools were closed due to the epidemic, we continued to use digital means to teach children and adults about Personal Safety. This quarter, over 18,500 children and adults were impacted by our key programmes (notably the Personal Safety Education, Training & Advocacy, and Digital Learning), as well as through other activities.

Personal Safety Education Programme

Personal Safety Education Programme (PSE) is a life skill-based module that teaches children to identify unsafe situations, skills to refuse and get away from incidents of Child Sexual Abuse and seek help. Adult caregivers are also included in the training so that they can provide a safe environment for children and respond appropriately. In this quarter, we were able to reach over 4,200 children and over 1,700 adults. What's new is that we've expanded our Personal Safety Education programme to work with adolescents in the age group of 16-18 years. This quarter we have engaged with them and initiated conversation on personal safety. We also provided counselling to 197 children who disclosed after the Personal Safety Education.

Training and Advocacy Programme

Arpan conducts training and capacity building programmes with NGO professionals, social workers, teachers, institutional personnel, health professionals, mental health experts, Government duty bearers, and corporates with the goal of increasing professional capacity for child safety. We were able to train approximately 8,000 people this quarter as part of our training and capacity-building strategy.

Through our advocacy at the central level, this quarter too we continued to offer content-based and training-based support to the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) for Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK) and have also supported the School Health & Wellness (SHW) programme under Ayushman Bharat (A collaborative between the Ministry of Education (MoE) and MoHFW). State-level advocacy resulted in Arpan being onboarded for creation of the State Curriculum Framework under the National Education Policy (NEP) in Maharashtra and Chattisgarh as an NGO partner. We also trained teachers following a directive by the Delhi Education Department and will be training teachers in Indore as per a directive by the Madhya Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights. We also conducted various trainings in the districts of Buldhana and Thane in Maharashtra.

Digital Learning Programme

With an aim to educate many more children on personal safety, Arpan has adapted Personal Safety Education course content traditionally delivered in the classrooms into online courses that can be accessed on www.arpanelearn.com. These courses are free-to-avail and can be accessed from anywhere in the world. The elearn modules have also been integrated on DIKSHA (Government of India's national platform for school education) as well as on other platforms like TCS iON is used by other organisations such as Inner Wheel. Over 4,200 people completed the modules as a result of these partnerships, while over 230 people completed the courses on Arpan elearn.

Mental Health Services

We truly believe that healing is possible, hence Arpan has been at the forefront of offering mental health care to victims of Child Sexual Abuse in order to empower them overcome its impact. Arpan has also expanded its support to help people deal with the emotional and psychological challenges they have faced in these trying times since last year, in light of the pandemic. We have also partnered with Maharashtra’s Women & Child Development (WCD) department to provide grief-counselling to those children who have lost their parents due to COVID-19.

In total, we worked with 354 individuals (children and adults) and delivered 2137 counselling sessions in this quarter.

Public Engagement & Awareness

Arpan's work includes raising public awareness on the issue of Child Sexual Abuse in order to educate people about how it could be prevented. We use a variety of communication channels to accomplish this, including social media, news magazines, radio, and digital platforms. Our total public engagement reach in this quarter was over 13.4 million, including the reach we gained during Child Safety Week. Apart from this, the video formats of the elearn modules were telecasted in English and Hindi on SwayamPrabha PM E-Vidya channels for grades 1 to 10 throughout the third quarter giving us thousands of more eyeballs.

Child Safety Week

The third edition of Child Safety Week (November 14th to November 20th, 2021) was an action-packed week, with over 167 organisations, 11 Influencers & 4 Adult Survivors from India and around the world coming together to raise their voices and mainstream dialogues about Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). This is especially commendable given that the world was not only still dealing with the pandemic but was also digitally exhausted.

The impact? We reached over 12.5 million people - these include people who heard our core messages, were sensitised on the issue of Child Sexual Abuse in some way, who held activities, shared content and accessed resources. The highlight was that the Child Safety Week was observed by atleast 13 Indian states following a directive from the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), Govt. Of India. A detailed report can be found HERE.

With your sustained support, we hope to continue working towards creating a world free from Child Sexual Abuse.

Please write to us at communications@arpan.org.in with your suggestions and feedback to make this newsletter better.

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