Arpan

We have built an organization dedicated to addressing and preventing an underfunded, poorly recognized issue impacting millions of children worldwide, that of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). Our impact on delivering personal safety education is proven and we are ready to scale. The Elevate Prize will create opportunities to raise visibility, creating greater support to tackle it, thus amplifying and accelerating impact. Shifting attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors is critical, especially in India’s cultural context; to impact a population of 1.2 billion, scale is essential. Having proven program effectiveness, established an innovative personal safety digital platform, and leveraged this experience to work at scale during COVID, we are ready to magnify our impact. We have successfully leveraged the power of collective action through Child Safety Week, an annual movement we established in 2019; through digital initiatives, social media, media coverage, our reach was an outstanding 13 million last year. The marketing, media expertise, and mentorship you provide can help build CSW into a global movement; the prize money, visibility, and funding opportunities you create are critical to our ability to scale. We are eager and ready to seize opportunities that the Elevate Prize creates, enabling us to deliver on our ambitious goals.

My CSA work started in 2006 – I was greatly moved by a play ‘30 Days in September’ that highlighted the trauma that CSA can have on victims well into adulthood. I finally understood my experience as an 8-year-old child and knew I HAD TO do something. No child deserves sexual abuse – it can have lifelong consequences and be very traumatizing. We started conducting awareness sessions, teaching personal safety to children and providing counseling and intervention to stop abuse. We were clear that training others would help scale. I envisage that someday all children will have personal safety skills and be equipped to seek help if unsafe. Today Arpan’s 100+ member team is India’s largest CSA nonprofit. We are a thought leader and critical stakeholder for state/non-state actors, using advocacy and research to push for policy and systemic change. We have won 6 National and 2 International Awards for innovation and impact. We aim to scale exponentially and reach all 250 million school-going children in India over the next decade and expand to other countries digitally, sharing learnings and curricula, to become an international resource center. With your help, we will fulfill our vision: A World Free from CSA.

One in two children face sexual abuse in India. Yet, there is tremendous taboo and silence; caregivers lack knowledge/skills to identify/intervene, children are unequipped to recognize abuse/seek help. Trauma from CSA can be lifelong; survivors can experience PTSD, depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies, substance abuse, etc. Estimates state: lifetime CSA economic burden is $9.3 billion (USA, 2018), annual CSA costs are £3.2 billion (UK, 2012/13). While corresponding India figures are unavailable, with ~50% of 1.3 billion people experiencing some degree of CSA, one can imagine the enormous emotional and financial burden. Towards this, we:

• Deliver an evidence-based life-skills module to children (Grades 1-10) – lesson plans help children identify and seek help when unsafe;
• Intervene in ongoing abuse cases, and provide legal support through partners;
• Train parents and teachers to understand CSA and handle children’s disclosures;
• Reiterate personal safety messages through a step-up program;
• Build age-appropriate pedagogy, test program effectiveness;
• Build stakeholder capacity to work with children, effectively respond to CSA cases;
• Enable systemic change through curriculum integration of personal safety;
• Maintain an e-learning platform with age-appropriate modules;
• Have directly delivered programming to 130,000 children, 100,000 adult caregivers, and trained 140,000 trainers, who have in turn reached 1.13 million additional beneficiaries.

We started work on CSA 15 years ago and have paved a path of impact and scale where there was none before. The experience we have developed and qualified through monitoring and evaluation, now enables us to focus on scaling our prevention work and helping partners, including the Indian Government, incorporate our curriculum and approach. Through established programs, we have demonstrated how to reduce CSA incidence and built an innovative and unique model that enables safe and private disclosures by children, promotion of healing through therapy, and providing psycho-education to families. To ensure continued impact and follow-through, our step-up program ensures that key age-appropriate personal safety messages are delivered to children every 2-3 years, again coupled with provision of safe spaces for disclosure and therapy. We also continuously conduct scientific evaluations that guide and strengthen program strategy. The field of CSA suffers from lack of evidence-based research to guide practitioners – we strive to fill this gap. More recently we have started to digitize our content and create e-learning courses that can be as effective as classroom sessions and can scale throughout India and globally. Digitization helps reduce costs dramatically and breaks physical barriers of reach in the smallest towns.

We work through the following strategies:

• Prevention and Healing Services for children and adults: Prevent CSA, provide counseling, develop content, expand local/international reach through digital content, multi-language translation;
• Training and Capacity Building: Enable others to replicate and scale prevention and healing services, including digitally;
• Public and Policy Advocacy: Create mass awareness, advocate for systemic-level change, integrate PSE in school curricula, make prevention and support services standard.

Internationally documented evidence shows that school-based prevention models work well to prevent CSA, and our program evaluations have demonstrated program effectiveness. An external evaluation showed that 8% of children reported being unsafe after attending our PSE program – of these, 90% sought immediate help from an adult. Another study showed that of 33 children, 9 faced an unsafe situation and all 9 demonstrated assertive and help-seeking behavior. Evaluation of Arpan’s training-of-trainers model showed that 84% of children who attended PSE implemented by trainees, retained >75% key PSE concepts. Our work is effective because our programs are grounded in field reality and are pedagogically strong, having been developed over years of piloting with thousands of beneficiaries. We are a stakeholder-focused, open, agile, learning organization. For us, success means impact and this approach drives our work.

Last year, we worked directly with 183,284 children and adults. In the coming year, as we transition more of our work through our digital platforms in order to accommodate the realities of COVID, we hope to directly reach over 300,000 children and adults. To date, over our 15-year journey, Arpan has impacted 1.64 million children and adults, of which over 500,000 have been reached directly through our programs and 1.13 million have been reached through our partners. In addition, our awareness building activities have a reach of 27 million.

Our direct impact includes: (i) children, parents, teachers, and non-teaching staff trained through our school-based Personal Safety Education (PSE) Program, (ii) professionals (teachers, social workers, counselors, and government employees) trained through our Training and Policy Advocacy Program, and (iii) children and adults who access our Digital Learning modules online. Impact through partners includes the children and adults served by the Master Trainers in partner organizations, that have been trained by us. Awareness building includes reach through events, media, and Child Safety Week, an annual people-led movement towards collective action against CSA that Arpan initiated 2 years ago. 

Towards our vision of A World Free of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), we are working towards the following impact goals. These align with SDG 16 (16.2, 16.a), SDG 4 (4.7, 4.a), SDG 3 (3.4), and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

• Prevent CSA
• Heal the victim from the ill-effects of CSA
• Enable systemic change through policy advocacy, to integrate personal safety in educational curricula
• Create mass awareness about CSA
• Train & build capacities of stakeholders who can teach children personal safety and provide counseling

We measure progress by tracking the following outcomes, measured through regular program monitoring and evaluations:

• Children know key personal safety messages and develop potential skills in preventing CSA
• Psycho-social stabilization is made possible for children with concerns of sexual abuse/ inappropriate behavior/ other concerns
• Adult caregivers feel equipped to support children on matters of personal safety
• Government/ Non-Government stakeholders have the knowledge, attitude, and potential skills to incorporate child protection mechanisms in their environments.
• Organizations have trained stakeholders and initiate preventive/ support measures
• Children who receive information on personal safety through trained participants, show an increase in knowledge and skills on preventing CSA
• Stakeholders incorporate CSA prevention material in their curriculum

• Visibility and Awareness: CSA is under-reported and ignored because it is an uncomfortable and taboo topic. The first step in our theory of change is raising awareness and acceptance that CSA exists and must be addressed. The Elevate Prize will bring in visibility and catalyze adoption of PSE by stakeholders globally.
• Technical: Evaluations have proven that our personal safety modules are effective at keeping children safe. While we have the capacity to undertake large outreach efforts, we are constrained by our experience and learnings. The Elevate Prize can help take our work to the next level through partnerships and integrating our content on other platforms. We need guidance to set up a content development team for developing more modules and a marketing team to liaise with partners locally and globally.
• Financial: The COVID crisis will continue to impact non-COVID funding. Changes in the socio-political landscape can change funding prioritization and laws for non-profits, potentially leading to funding loss. While Arpan will continue to build and leverage its diversified donor base, the Elevate Prize will put us in the league of other brilliant organizations doing brilliant work across the globe and will put us in the spotlight with new potential funders. 

Our vision is simple – we want ALL children in the world to be safe. While we have proven our ability to work at scale, our outreach is still small compared to India’s population of 1.4 billion people. The Elevate Prize will amplify our voice and create a snowballing effect, thus helping build higher awareness, both, about the cause and the Arpan brand; ultimately, this will help Arpan keep more children safe, thus feeding into our vision. Culturally, CSA is brushed under the carpet and remains unacknowledged. The Prize will bring the issue front and center, thus compelling people to acknowledge it – the first step for them to be inspired to do something about it. We foresee that we will develop change agents who will work on behalf of Arpan to do more in their communities. The media campaigns and brand recognition will help generate interest with technology partners who can help scale. We aspire for our fanbase to include more international partners who can benefit from Arpan’s digital courses. Working with them to understand the local context and tweak the product, Arpan can take its content to children across the world, with these partners driving the program locally.

DEI is well embodied by Arpan’s leadership as a conscious strategy. While our team is ~80% women, other genders are very consciously part of key committees (eg. sexual harassment, child protection), our Board and Advisory Council. Similarly, persons experiencing disabilities and those on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum are onboard. For an equitable environment, the leadership works with different work timings based on employee preferences. Equal therapeutic and training allowance is provided, irrespective of level/ team; an additional travel allowance is provided. Support for persons experiencing disabilities is normalized within the organization culture. No distinction is made based on age/ gender/ sexual orientation/ disability/ other differentiators during recruitment/ while deciding salary/ increments. Our core values include respect, empathy, transparency, and trust, which promote inclusion and an environment in which everyone is treated with respect and dignity. Arpan has been certified by Great Place to Work® Institute, India, as a “Great Place to Work” for 3 consecutive years – our policies and work culture are appreciated by employees. There is scope for more. We will further sensitize our teams to intersectional issues (eg. gender, disabilities), continue a hybrid work-from-home-or-office model, and are currently analyzing feedback received from various surveys/HR interactions to improve DEI.

I am a survivor of CSA and have experienced first-hand the impact it has had on me and my life. I have been in therapy for many years and have experienced how therapy is a powerful tool for healing the impact of CSA. I started therapy not only to heal myself, but also to experience what it means to be a client. It helped me strengthen our approach to healing and become client-centric. I have spent hundreds of hours volunteering in children’s shelter homes, old-age homes and teaching office skills to special-needs children before starting work on CSA. I have worked in communities with children across varied demographics. Arpan’s leadership team members come from diverse backgrounds and together we make an extraordinarily strong team with varied skills/ experiences. Some team members are also survivors of CSA. Feedback is taken from the team across levels before finalizing annual plans or the 5-year strategy and ideas are incorporated – for eg. when COVID hit, we quickly asked our team about what we could do to help the situation. We also seek regular feedback from beneficiaries through feedback forms, focused group discussions and evaluation studies, and incorporate learnings into program delivery. 

In July 2010, I found myself in a position where Arpan didn’t have enough funds for salaries. I hadn’t tracked cash flows. I leveraged my network and raised money but decided to ensure that going forwards we have an 8-12-month cash runway. In 2012, half my team left within 3 months, mostly for personal reasons. This affected our programs and ability to deliver on our mission. I learnt to develop and leverage a buddy system and hired 10% more staff than needed. In 2020, COVID struck and we had to pivot our work online. We had been forward-thinking and had started digitizing data management and program content 4 years ago - that helped. Three big funders diverted funding to COVID, but our diverse donor base sustained us, plus we added new donors. We didn’t lay off anyone/cut salaries/dip into reserves; in fact, we paid timely salaries and provided financial advances to team members in financial distress. We distributed over 6,000 grocery kits and started a counselling helpline for stress/anxiety. We grew 56% in the COVID year. I’ve built an open and learning organization that is true to its mission/vision, resilient, agile and innovative to traverse through crises and emerge stronger. 

• Pooja’s speech, WISE Awards, Qatar Foundation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCEAOMiHiFI&t=7s
• Arpan's Ambassador, Bollywood Actress Vidya Balan, joins the fight against CSA, and Pooja shares her message about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjX4kkdu-ro
• Pooja talks about ‘Hope’ in “A world of no hope” (she speaks about Arpan's work and the need to talk about #PersonalSafetyEducation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whWi1BUkQgQ
• Pooja’s speech at the Women Deliver Conference 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFn7YraC1xo
• Pooja Taparia’s presentation on Arpan's Journey & Learnings of a Social Entrepreneur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssuSWOEfHQU
• Documentary about Arpan’s Personal Safety Education Program by WISE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR934lVBFQ4
• “The Influencers” – an interview featuring Pooja: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGaNuTYOfwk 
• Presentation by Pooja at the Annual Stakeholders Conference on Child Sexual Abuse (ASCCSA) conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxuN_ToxfJk 
• Interview with The Brand Called You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ydCblbTBEY 
• Webinar on CSA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnQFK0xrMt0 
• NDTV features Arpan: https://www.ndtv.com/mumbai-news/how-this-mumbai-based-ngo-is-protecting-children-from-sex-offenders-1291531 
• Arpan featured on the Tara Sharma Show on Star World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZg-hlBrvl8 
• Interview by Patna Pirates (Hindi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d46UwH2-UII 
• Pooja’s acceptance speech, C. Henry Kempe Award by the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN, USA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiwaQ6Mvics 
• Pooja’s acceptance speech, Archana Astitwa Award: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOdTFg_7y4w 
• Pooja’s acceptance speech, BWW-Parivartan Inspire Award: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knch1u1Bx2M

We are at the tipping point of scale and the Elevate Prize partnership is exactly what we need to take us to the next level of impact. In addition to the marketing/media expertise, brand building, mentorship, and visibility that the Prize will provide, funding is critical to our ability to build on our digital platform and expertise and empower partners to deploy personal safety education. The Elevate Prize funding will enable us to:

• Invest in a robust digital content development team that can develop content for consumption on different online platforms, using a variety of media options
• Invest in a technical team that can integrate the digital content so created onto existing/new external platforms
• Invest in a leader to drive international partnerships and who can expand the reach of our digital personal safety modules beyond India, Guatemala and the Philippines
• Invest in consultants and advisors who can help us develop a long term digital strategy
• Invest in partnerships with key influencers (individuals/organizations)

The Elevate Prize is well respected and follows an extremely thorough and extensive due diligence process – winning it will help generate interest about CSA and our work with new funders and help get them on board. 

• Schools: Strong partnerships with ~250 schools to implement our school-based Personal Safety Education (PSE) Program.
• Government: Strong partnerships with National, State, and Local Governments. To bring focus on child safety, we train Government stakeholders to implement PSE, and advocate to integrate PSE into educational curricula. We are the go-to organization on CSA for key Government entities – eg. Ministries of Health and Education, National Council of Educational Research & Training, several State/ Local Governments.
• Other organizations: Have partnered with over 600 large and small non-profit organizations and educational institutions, to train them on preventing CSA and replicating PSE.
• Online platforms for Digital Learning: We host personal safety courses that can be accessed across the world on www.arpanelearn.com. However, there is tremendous value in providing these courses at multiple points of use, instead of investing in driving traffic to our website. For example, our partnership with DIKSHA which houses educational material, enables higher outreach of our e-courses. Similarly, we have partnered with organizations in the Philippines and Guatemala to adapt our digital content to the local context.

Arpan has also worked closely and collaboratively with over 150 partners/organizations to make Child Safety Week a tremendous success and movement catalyst.