Arpan, an NGO that works to provide child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention and intervention services for both children and adults, conducted their annual review event yesterday at a South Mumbai venue.
Mumbai: Arpan, an NGO that works to provide child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention and intervention services for both children and adults, conducted their annual review event yesterday at a South Mumbai venue. The almost two-decades-old organisation founded by Pooja Taparia has managed to reach nearly 18.3 million individuals through their work.
Their targeted direct outreach at the start of last year was 93,503; and they managed to overshoot the target by achieving a direct outreach of 1,55,563. The year 2023 was a year of consolidation — a year to reinforce their current programmes and initiatives, and also prepare for the next decade. To date, around 9,50,000 individuals have been trained directly by the NGO.
With a team of over 140 dedicated professionals, Arpan is India’s largest non-profit organisation providing CSA Prevention and Intervention services for both children and adults. Its founder and CEO, Pooja Taparia, said, “As the year of consolidation, we truly strengthened our existing work, our support functions grew and strengthened too. Moving forward, we are ready to scale up — teacher training, team size, budgets and more are going to grow by around 30 per cent. It is also extremely exciting how much the School, Health and Wellness Programme is reaching millions more children than we can imagine. That 18.3 million figure is really a small part of the total outreach and impact that we are seeing today.”
In 2023 – 2024, Arpan’s overall achievement included Personal Safety Education programme reaching 13,010 children and 6,473 adults; digital learning programme reaching 78,308 children and 16,518 adults; public awareness outreach reached 5,518 and 35,264 stakeholders were trained. Additionally, 472 children and adults were provided mental health support. The annual review event also saw speeches by Arpan’s donors, partners, board members and advisors.
The speakers included Dr Caroline Vaz from Green Lawns High School; Mahendra Gaikwad from district women and child development, Thane; Dr Trinjhna Khattar, Program Director and Psychotherapist, Institute for Exceptional Children; Jaikumar Leslie from TCSIOn; Leena Rajan from Bajaj Fineserv; Dr Shobha Khandare from MSCERT; Anagha Padhye, head of philanthropy, Aga & Pudumjee Family; and Lisa Jordan, senior managing director at Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation.
The review was followed by an awards distribution ceremony that saw awards being given to the best performing employees of Arpan, in order to encourage people to continue working in this noble cause.
