Help prevent sexual abuse of children in India

We had an exciting beginning to the 2018-19 financial year. We had Ms Vidya Balan, the celebrated actor join us as our Goodwill ambassador. We also had Nickelodeon, a renowned kid's franchise associate with Arpan for their global pro-socio initiative "Together for Good" which addresses the issue of child safety. It was also that time of the year when we focused on training and developing professional capacities of school and organisational staff as it is relatively an easier time of the year for our partners. We have trained over 490 professionals including social workers, government officials, teachers, principals and mental health professionals. We also conducted awareness sessions with over 2700 individuals including teachers, parents, principals, NGO professionals, counsellors and non-teaching staff. We are happy to be back in schools and interact with children and inculcate Personal safety skills in them. In this quarter, Arpan has touched the lives of over 1100 children and 1200 adults through the Personal Safety Education programme and supported the healing journey of over 60 children and adult survivors through the Mental Health programme.

Vidya Balan -Arpan's Goodwill Ambassador 

It is an honour for Arpan to have a celebrated actor like Ms Vidya Balan as our Goodwill ambassador. With Ms Vidya Balan supporting the cause, we are hoping that Arpan will grow manifold in being able to amplify conversations around the issue Child Sexual Abuse, influence many more people to speak up for prevention of Child Sexual Abuse and play an active role in creating a safe environment while working diligently on its prevention and healing interventions at the grassroots and systemic level. Talking about her association with Arpan, Ms Vidya Balan said,

"As a society, it is critical that we look at how such a social evil can be prevented and how each of us can play a role in keeping children safe. Given the current scenario in our country, now more than ever there is a need for all of us to step up and work towards preventing Child Sexual Abuse. If we "Know more about Child Sexual Abuse" we can work towards an India with "NO more Child Sexual Abuse".

Arpan's association with Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon, a renowned kid's franchise associated with Arpan for their global pro-socio initiative "Together for Good" which addresses the issue of child safety. As part of the "No to fear and yes to safety". The initiative, Arpan engaged with kids in schools through an interactive school contact programme and facilitated the sessions in four cities- Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Chennai and Mumbai. This initiative has the potential to equip millions of children with personal safety messages and bring the issue to the public domain.

Building professional capacity 

This quarter, we focused on conducting several training sessions. The training sessions focused on the diverse needs of the partners and played a critical role in building their professional capacities on child protection. The training sessions were conducted with:

- School teachers of NLK schools, Kanpur. We are working them for the last three years and handholding them to integrate Personal Safety Education Programme in their curriculum. 

- School teachers, Anganwadi workers, community workers and social workers of Gramin Shiksha Kendra, an NGO based in Rajasthan.

- Senior Police Inspectors, Constables and Officers from Women Cell as part of the work on a community-based model for Child Protection in Chandrapur, Maharashtra. 

- Social workers and counsellors of Akanksha Foundation in Mumbai and Pune. 

- NGO professionals of Child Help Foundation in Kolkata.

- Teachers and NGO professionals through a training session on CSA organized by Bola, a Pune-based initiative started by survivors of CSA.

sArpan'ssadVidya Balan - Arpan's Goodwill Ambassadoror

Links:

• arpan NGO

• case_story.docx (DOCX)