Help prevent sexual abuse of children in India

We are in a challenging time. All of us are trying to navigate this in our own ways and trying to show up for what we believe in. Arpan is doing the same. The first quarter of the financial year 2020 - 21 was different, challenging, yet very exciting for all of us at Arpan. It made us well-versed with technology to conduct our programmes virtually and improved our digital health. Amidst the lockdown, we continued to touch the lives of children and adults through Webinars, Online Personal Safety Education, Mental Health Services, Child Sexual Abuse Education and Training, and Online Prevention and Awareness. And as we traverse these times with tech-enabled solutions, we continue to further our work with hope and determination. We also see tremendous opportunity to broaden our reach and pivot our work for a permanently 'phygital' (both physical and digital) world for delivery of programmes.

Personal Safety Education

Personal Safety Education Programme (PSE) is a life skill-based module which teaches children to identify safe and unsafe situations, skills to refuse and get away from incidents of Child Sexual Abuse, and seek help. The programme also works with adult caregivers so that they can create a safe environment for children and respond effectively. While this quarter saw a strict lockdown throughout the nation and schools too remained close. Therefore, we were not able to reach out to children through our PSE programme, this quarter. We were able to reach out to 377 teachers, service staff, and parents during this period. We focused on internal team training and customizing our content to be online friendly. We also provided humanitarian aid by distributing 2,065 ration kits during COVID-19.

Mental Health Services

Arpan is one of the few organizations working at various levels to facilitate healing and accompany the victims of Child Sexual Abuse and their families in their journey towards mental wellbeing. But the outbreak of the Coronavirus and the never ending uncertainties did take a toll on to people's mental health and well-being. So, Arpan opened up its mental health services for such concerns as well. It was overwhelming to receive calls from all over Maharashtra, Delhi, Rajasthan, and Haryana and Singapore. This quarter we received a total of 37 calls on our Helpline. Through our Mental Health services, we also conducted various innovative self-care programmes to help those who were emotionally and mentally affected by the pandemic. We developed parenting and self-care resources to be disseminated on WhatsApp. It was heartening to see how these programmes helped hundreds of individuals navigate through these challenging times and adapt to the new normal.

Child Sexual Abuse Education & Training

Arpan has been focusing on creating awareness, building professional capacity for child protection by conducting training and capacity building initiatives with NGO professionals, Social Workers, Teachers, Institutional staff, Health professionals, Mental Health professionals, Government duty bearers and Corporates. We also advocate for robust child protection mechanisms at the systemic level by working on a collaborative model with government bodies. We conducted Awareness sessions with 523 stakeholders and Hand Holding sessions with 126 stakeholders, online. Arpan was invited as a panellist for a webinar on "Stress Management and Healthy Lifestyle" for Adolescents. We also shared Arpan's posters and other resources with the Ministry of Health to circulate across States. Arpan was invited by Uadayan Care to join the National Alliance in India for COVID-19 Response on Aftercare. We engaged with the National Health Authority to finalise the training module for Ayushman Bharat.

Arpan initiated a conversation with the North Delhi Municipal Corporation about training NDMC teachers to implement Personal Safety Education. We also conducted Handholding sessions for Mentor Teachers through focus group discussions for the Directorate of Education (DOE), Government of Delhi. We are also in conversation with the Maharashtra State Education, Research and Training (MSCERT) for collaboration on training and creating safety and security modules.

Online Prevention and Awareness

Realising the potential of an interactive e-learning platform as an easy and efficient learning tool to transcend geographical boundaries and scale Personal Safety Education programme, we launched online learning programme where children can learn about Personal Safety and adults can acquire awareness about Child Sexual Abuse prevention and intervention last year. This quarter, 1,514 users accessed Arpan's Digital Learning resources. We are proud to share that we launched an English Module on Personal Safety Education for 11 to 13-year-olds and an FAQ booklet for Adolescents. We also uploaded our resources like Preventing & Responding to Child Sexual Abuse (English), Frequently Asked Questions booklet, Personal Safety Education module for 11 to 13-year-olds (English) on DIKSHA platform.

Public Engagement

With a vision of a world free from Child Sexual Abuse, Arpan proposes to create awareness and sensitization through public advocacy and communication campaigns. This quarter, our total Public Engagement outreach was over 5,86,269. We hosted live sessions on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and also participated in external sessions.

While most of us have adapted the new normal, many of us have been deeply affected by the impact of COVID-19. But like we always say, 'Every dark cloud has a silver lining' and we hope we will soon be on the other side of the pandemic.

Be safe. Do continue to be with us in this journey; encourage and support us in whatever way you can. It means a lot to us.