Digital Learning

The seed for Online Learning for Awareness and Prevention was germinated in 2017-18. It was a component of the Personal Safety Education Programme and came into being as a response to the questions around scaling which we were asking ourselves. As we integrated technology into the core of our programme, we started with small steps of creating ebooks for adults on the prevention and intervention of CSA and an interactive flipbook for children aged five and above. This was a baby step towards exploring whether digitalization can enable Arpan to scale its PSE programme alongside the ongoing direct-service model. However, in 2018-19, we have been able to take the idea further and develop this as an independent programme which will solely look at developing a comprehensive online child protection curriculum and explore its reach and efficiency. Our growing confidence that through the online curriculum we will be able to reach the desired social outcome of teaching children personal safety fuelled its expansion, as initial skepticism started to falter in the face of expanding experience. With this new milestone, we are hoping we will be able to catalyse a pedagogical shift in how we teach and learn as the course had been able to shift away from top-down lecturing and passive students approach to a more interactive, collaborative approach in which students and instructors co-create the learning process and the instructor’s role is more of a “guide on the side” rather than being the “sage on the stage.”

Realising the potential of an interactive e-Learning platform as an easy and efficient learning tool to transcend geographical boundaries, constraints of bandwidth and funding we launched a responsive website www.arpanelearn.com can acquire awareness about Child Sexual Abuse prevention and intervention. This website is built for scale and can handle requests from most modern browsers like Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox. Our website is also built with minimal design principles in mind – that means that we are using the fewest clicks to get our user from the home page to the course content. Additionally, it also uses children friendly pictures and iconography. 

This free, online platform provides child-friendly resources and also helps parents, teachers and adults to teach their children about Personal Safety. As such, it takes the Arpan Personal Safety classrooms to children’s homes and schools so that they can learn to participate in their safety from the comfort of their homes or schools. This curriculum can create avenues for opening up communication channels between caregivers and children on an otherwise sensitive issue of personal safety. 

Till now, 6,570 individuals self-availed digital courses of Personal Safety Education on arpanelearn.com and 61,000 children and adults availed the course through partnerships and through platforms like Diksha which has integrated the course.

The Facilitator’s Course is meant for any parent, teacher or adult interested in playing their part in child protection and helping their children participate in their safety. The course takes 5 minutes and prepares the adult to facilitate the Personal Safety course for children.

Here is the link of the course : 

English – https://www.arpanelearn.com/coursedetails.php?id=12

हिन्दी – https://www.arpanelearn.com/coursedetails.php?id=13

The Personal Safety Course is meant for 8 to 10-year-old children. The course introduces kids to age-appropriate information on safe and unsafe touches, helps them to identify unsafe touches, refuse them and seek help. It also introduces Personal Safety Rule which teaches children that “It is never alright for someone to touch, look and talk about their Private Body Parts except to keep them clean and healthy”. The term Private Body Parts is explained as those parts which are covered by undergarments or swimming suits. It consists of 12 original videos and over a dozen quizzes. Our videos feature 3 main characters – ChiSa, Neha and Aamir. ChiSa is a charming exercise loving dog who hosts and guides the children throughout their learning experience. Neha and Aamir are two 9-year-old children who ask the questions that children are likely to have and ChiSa responds to them.

Here is the link of course :

English: https://www.arpanelearn.com/coursedetails.php?id=10

हिन्दी : https://www.arpanelearn.com/coursedetails.php?id=11

मराठी : https://www.arpanelearn.com/coursedetails.php?id=19

Here is a video to know more about the programme

The Personal Safety Course is meant for 11-13 -year-old children. The course introduces kids to age-appropriate information on safe and unsafe touches and situations, helps them to identify unsafe touches and situations both online and offline, refuse them and seek help. The module begins with a brief story about Rohan & Ayesha (names changed) who are students of class 7 & 8 respectively. The story is about how they met with an unsafe situation and how they came out of it. The objective is to explain safe and unsafe situations through their story and what actions one should take to deal with unsafe situation or behaviours. 

Here is the link of course :

English – https://www.arpanelearn.com/coursedetails.php?id=18

The platform also hosts “My Safety Book”, a picture-story book for children between the ages of 4-7. This book teaches your child how to identify potentially unsafe situations; and how to seek help from a trusted adult when faced with an unsafe situation.

Here is the link of the book:

English – https://www.arpanelearn.com/coursedetails.php?id=7

हिन्दी – https://www.arpanelearn.com/coursedetails.php?id=14

मराठी – https://www.arpanelearn.com/coursedetails.php?id=15

The E-Learn Portal also provides host of resources for caregivers such as ‘Responding to Child Sexual Abuse – A Handbook for Caregivers’ and the ‘Understanding CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE – Frequently Asked Questions’. These booklets equip caregivers with the knowledge and vocabulary needed to understand the issue of Child Sexual Abuse, facilitate an understanding of the issue and propose simple tips for participating in children’s safety. These resources are a result of Arpan’s first-hand experience of working on the ground for the last 13+ years.

Here is the link of our resources: https://www.arpanelearn.com/