Annual Report 2016- 2017

FROM HOTSPOTS TO SAFESPOTS: keeping the most vulnerable children safe, supported, in school, and free from harm

Aangan works to keep the most vulnerable children safe, supported, in school and free from trafficking, child labour, child marriage, violence and abuse. Keeping children safe from harm, although a universally desired goal, is more complicated than you’d  imagine. Especially if you want  to accomplish it for children from the most marginalized and vulnerable communities and geographies. The children who live in isolated rural settlements, urban unauthorised bastis, impoverished migrant communities, from families who live perilously close to ruin, with little or no access to social security and services like Aanganwadis, schools, police stations, and hospitals. We identify these as the ‘hotspots’ of child harm. And it is in these locations that we focus our work.

About Aangan

How do you keep the most vulnerable child S.A.F.E? In hotspots where child harm is ubiquitous, normalized even, how can families protect their  children? And how can governments make good on their duty to assure children’s right to safety?

This last year we focused on demonstrating how safety is a goal achievable for even this most hard to reach child. How ‘hotspots’ can be transformed to ‘safespots’   once you recognize that protection systems are human systems, and the key lies in building local capabilities of both formal and informal systems.

In 85 locations across six states we trained and coached community women child protection volunteers to build Child Safety Groups that brought community, local government and children together and placed the issues of child harm at the very center of community attention, fostering joint-responsibility and a means of coordinating joint action to ensure children’s safety and protection.

This year was about the difficult but critical journey that 85 child safety groups in as many locations took to move from  being hotspots of child harm to safespots where their children can thrive.

Our challenge

85 hotspots

20 districts

6 states

Aangan’s work is spread across six states, targeting particularly vulnerable ‘Hotspot’ communities in districts where child protection indicators on child marriage, trafficking, hazardous work or exploitation are high.The parameters used for selecting hotspots are: States with low social indicators like large numbers of out-of-school children, or the most backward districts, or that have high prevalence of trafficking, child marriage, child labor, missing children, and abuse. The sources of this data are Unicef/UNODC; the Government of India’s ‘Most Backward Regions Grant List’; and consultation with state authorities or district officials. 

Identifying hotspots

Uttar Pradesh: Varanasi, Chandauli, Mau, Basti, Bahraich Bihar: Patna, Muzaffarpur, Gaya, SitamarhiOdisha: Khurda, Boudh, BolangirMaharashtra: Mumbai, PuneRajasthan: BharatpurWest Bengal: Malda, 24 N. Parganas, 24 S. Parganas, Murshidabad 

Aangan’s impact is measured on S.A.F.E dimensions*Safety and protection improvesAccess to basic services increasesFamily and community interconnectedness improvesEducation and Economic security increases

Creating safespots

* S.A.F.E. framework adapted from Betancourt, T. S., Harvard School of Public Health

When local officials are active, engaged in prevention work and work in coordination with community women, to achieve this then that community is defined as a S.A.F.E-spot

The basic premise of SAFE is that a child’s safety needs are interrelated and interdependent, and all four dimensions need to be addressed for any child to be kept safe from harm.

The year in numbers

Aangan trained 1100 child protection volunteers with technical skills and knowledge to run 85 child safety groups.

They collected hyperlocal data from 19000 hotspot households using the Aangan mobile child safety app

This data was used to strategise and develop customised hyperlocal child safety action plans which was jointly implemented with the community and local government officials.

This impacted 157379 hard-to-reach vulnerable children keeping them safe from harm• Parents we worked with: 45000 • Number of girls in our child safety groups: 19337• Number of boys in child safety groups: 6424

* S.A.F.E. framework adapted from Betancourt, T. S., Harvard School of Public Health

Reduced incidents of child harm, trafficking, hazardous work, abuse or exploitation and in the interim identification of harm, early reporting and action.

❖ Kept girls safe from marriage: Less than 1% of girls in Aangan’s girl safety networks got married or pregnant compared to 24% of their sisters who  had child marriages and 53% of their mothers married as children 

❖ Increased reporting: 46% increase in FIRs filed with the police. Although its still low in absolute numbers the significance lies in the shift in awareness about laws and confidence to approach the authorities among community members 

❖ Responded to risk and harm: 78% (of 1774) serious harm cases informally reported to community women volunteers were successfully averted with children being rescued from situations such as child marriage, sex trafficking and child labour 

❖ Targeting the most vulnerable or most at risk: 6% decrease in children from families in debt who dropped out of school to work, Because community volunteers now see the link between family indebtedness and the risk to the child, of being forced into work or marriage.

Safety and Protection

Laws, officials, essential documents, government schemes, entitlements and other protective systems are increasingly available to most marginalized families, thus reducing child vulnerability.

❖ Giving children identity: Children without birth certificates/ identity documents reduced from 50% to 40%. This reduces vulnerability to traffickers and is important documentation to protect against early marriage, child labour, or other age related protection. It also eases access to education, health services and other social security schemes

❖ 28% increase in family awareness about government social protection schemes❖ Extending the safety net to the most vulnerable families: Over 53,600 families and

27,900 children accessed or benefitted from government schemes.

Access to basic

services

Community adults and influencers are engaged and alert. Families and communities act collectively on child protection.

❖ Improving supervision to protect children: Isolated or unsupervised children decreased from 41% to 34% through school enrolment drives, activating informal services and making communities alert to the dangers of leaving children without appropriate adult supervision

❖ Children under six years not attending aanganwadis decreased from 33% to 20%, thus benefiting not just the young children themselves, but also ensuring that this meant that their older siblings (usually sisters) would not be denied education because of supervision duties

❖ Number of families who went into debt due to wedding loans decreased by 2%. (Average loan amounts INR 49,000 equal to average annual Income INR 48,000). This is because awareness of the linkage between indebtedness and child vulnerability has spurred community safety groups to spread awareness about various government schemes designed for this.

❖ 54% of families reached took two preventive steps to make children safer.

Family and community

For Aangan school links to safety in ways that go far beyond the obvious power of education to transform and change lives. In a practical sort of way, we see that the child who is in school is a child who is accounted for. She is not married off, or trafficked, or at work or locked up at home. When children attend school regularly, we know where they are, and in the fight to prevent children from just going ‘missing’ that is significant. Through concerted efforts this last year, we achieved

 ❖ Children not attending school regularly reduced by 2%❖ Out of school girls reduced by 2% (from 45% to 43%)❖ Working children who dropped out of school reduced from 73% to 58%❖ Families who believe school is unsafe for girls reduced from 14% to 9%

Education & economic security

Communities in action

Increased community awareness and vigilance led to several marriages being averted by the community residents. Girls themselves were able to negotiate with parents and successfully avert an early marriage. In some other cases, community women got together to approach and convince the girls’ families against making such a move, In a few cases, community members felt the need to involve local officials.

13-year-old Rekha from Motihari, Bihar was betrothed to a man twenty years older – a suspected case of disguised child sex trafficking. A group of community women attempted to convince the parents against this. When that didn’t seem to work, the women approached the police and village head (Mukhiya) and the wedding was eventually prevented, after which Rekha was enrolled back into school and became a member of the girls’ safety circle.

Community residents from 22 of the 85 hotspots perceived toilet routes to be amongst the three most dangerous spaces. In Bharlai the community homes did not have toilets, so the girls had to walk long distances to the public toilet, which was in a vacant lonely space, with no streetlights, near the railway line. As a result, the girls and women of the community were incessantly sexually abused and harassed. When this issue was highlighted by the app results and discussed amongst girls in safety circles, they decided to draft a torch distribution campaign plan to increase security. Through the persistent efforts of community women volunteers and the girls, the Child Welfare Committee members, the local police, Aanganwadi Workers, Asha workers, school authorities and ward members came together on the chosen day to distribute 200 torches and debate on safety and security of women in the community.

When communities are aware and take joint action the child is no longer rendered invisible

Community as extended

family

In hotspots where Aangan interventions are being implemented, families are supported to identify early warning signs of child harm and take preventive action. The community itself comes together in these locations to play the role of a larger family for those who need it

Most people in Patharbandh, Odisha, are daily wage labourers, including women. With two working parents, there is nobody to take care of younger children, who are consequently left unsupervised or in the care of school-age siblings. This has, in turn, resulted in high school dropout rates and worse yet, a high number of children who go missing. Identifying this as a serious issue during one of the community parent meetings, five community women got together and took on the responsibility of setting up a crèche at a monthly cost of Rs. 100 per month per household. They remodelled an unused room within the community premises to create a child-friendly crèche. More than 20 children are presently enrolled in the crèche and are gradually moving along a pathway to formal education; they are tended to and taken care of by their own extended community family.

Community women volunteers sought to get the local liquor shop, or ‘theka’, shifted to a location out of their community so that the girls and women could access the main market without personal risk. The women volunteers helped gather signatures and presented a letter to the District Collector’s office. Finally the ‘theka’ was moved out of the community by local officials.

When people in the community support each other, opportunities arise for a better future

Access to education

In Siklighar, in the Sewar community of Bharatpur, Rajasthan, children weren’t able go to school since the access road was perpetually waterlogged; many children had fallen into the dirty water, and some had succumbed to Malaria and Dengue. Community women volunteers persistently pushed local municipal officials to get the road reconstructed to ensure it remains dry. Now, over 30 previously irregular children from Siklighar have begun attending school regularly.

Education in a hotspot is not an easy accomplishment for a child. Schools are rife with poor attendance and high dropout rates in hotspots. In order to bring about a change in the out-of school children it is important to get all stakeholder involved.

In Rajghat, Uttar Pradesh, there are 3 primary schools and 2 secondary schools. Yet illiteracy and dropping out of school is commonplace. To address this issue, community women volunteers conducted child safety circles and parent circles, linking being in school to child safety. The volunteers facilitated discussions between the parents and school principals. They proceeded to make a list of drop-out children through surveys and formally enrolled these children into school. As a result of the efforts of all community stakeholders concerned, 252 out-of-school children have been enrolled in schools in Rajghat alone.

When communities negotiate for change, every child has a chance to stay safe, supported and in school

Creating opportunities

An important outcome for Aangan is an increase in children accessing child-focused services such as anganwadis and schools; and local protective services such as police stations during times of need. Anganwadi services, for instance, has an impact on child care, nutrition, adult supervision and continuing education.

Aangan’s interventions ensured a 11% decrease in the number of out-of-school children across our hotspots, and 56% of the children now have a personally customised career and future financial plan. Further, the number of girls who plan to study up to graduation or beyond has gone up from 28% to 70%, and more parents (10% more) are now willing to allow their children to complete primary education as opposed to pulling them out of school for marriage or work.

Increased access to anganwadis has made a huge difference for girls like Seema from Rajghat, Banaras; who is all of 7 years old and from a family that has an alcoholic unemployed father and a mother working two shifts. Seema can now actually go to school and not be concerned with taking care of her three younger siblings at home, since her family was able to access the nearby Anganwadi services.

When communities strive for increased access, children can aspire to a better future

Financial information

Financial information

Legal compliance

Aangan Trust is registered as a Public Trust with the Charity Commissioner, Greater Bombay Region, Reg. No. E 18695, dated September 29, 2000.

Other registrations are:

• Director of Income Tax (Exemptions) U/s 80G, Registration No. DIT(E)/MC/ 80G/ 3038 / 2009-10, validity – perpetual.

• U/s 12A of the Income Tax Act, Registration No. INS 36954, April 1st 2002.

• Permanent Account Number (PAN) is AAATT5502G.

• TAN Number is MUM14911B

• Nite Aayog Unique ID number is MH/ 2016/ 114196

Aangan is registered under section 6 (1) (a) of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 1976 (FCRA Registration No. 083781091) and hence is entitled to also get donations from abroad. FCRA permission has been renewed unto 31st October 2021

Aangan operates Bank Accounts with HDFC Bank Ltd., Sandoz House Branch Worli, Mumbai. The FCRA account is also with the same bank and branch.

Aangan has a dedicated accountant running daily operations and supporting the budgeting process together with the Trustees. The cash-flow of the organization is managed on a monthly basis. The accounting software used is Tally ERP version 9.

R.P. Shah and Co. (304 Tardeo AC Market, Tardeo, Mumbai 400 034) are our statutory auditors. These external auditors conduct a half yearly and a detailed financial auditing procedure at the end of the financial year.

Accounting practices

Thank you

We have been incredibly fortunate to be able to count on financial and volunteer support from funders and individuals who have been extremely generous with both their time and resources. A special thank you goes to:

AMERICAN JEWISH WORLD SERVICE

EMPOWER THE EMERGING MARKETS FOUNDATION

ASHISH ASTHANA & SAMEERA ANAND

EPIC FOUNDATION

AZIM PREMJI PHILANTHROPIC INITIATIVES

FORBES MARSHALL FOUNDATION

BRITISH ASIAN TRUST FREEDOM FUND

CHINTU GUDIYA FOUNDATION GENEVA GLOBAL

COMIC RELIEF UK HEMENDRA KOTHARI FOUNDATION

DSP BLACK ROCK PVT LTD HT PAREKH FOUNDATION

DASRA- GIVING CIRCLE HDFC CREDILA

DHRUVI ACHARYA LGT VENTURE PHILANTHROPY FOUNDATION

MHFC

NIRLON FOUNDATION TRUST

RAJEEV SAMANT

SHUCHI KOTHARI

SRIDHAR IYER SETHURAM

TECHNOVA IMAGING SYSTEMS PVT LTD

UNITED WAY OF MUMBAI

VACHA PROJECT TEJASVI

The Aangan Trust 101, First floor, Arun Chambers

Tardeo Road, Mumbai 400034 Tel: +91 (0)22 2352 5832

Email: contact@aanganindia.org www.aanganindia.org