B.PAC in Partnership with Australian Direct Aid and United Way of Bengaluru launched their Program on Safety of Women & Children
Bengaluru, October 13th, 2016:
Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC) in partnership with Australian Direct Aid (an Australian Consulate Sponsored Initiative) and United Way of Bengaluru launched the B.SAFE: ‘A Billion Eyes’ program to create safe spaces in school and build ‘Safety Network for Women’ from specific socio economic group. These initiatives will be implemented with support of B.CLIP (Civic Leadership incubator Program) leaders.
Safety of Women and Children is one of the key issues facing us all. Governments, both Central and State have introduced laws, such as POCSO and POSH to enable a safe environment for our children and women. The Karnataka Government has gone one step further and introduced a Child Protection Policy for schools. However, the challenge on this issue is to build greater awareness, create larger community engagement and ensure implementation of these policies and laws, to truly guarantee a safe environment for women and children.
Child Safety: The program shall work with twenty Government schools across the city to implement the child protection policy by setting up child protection committee in school, conducting sensitization and training program for school teaching, non-teaching staff and parents and self-awareness workshops for students. The program shall implement preventive and pre-emptive measures such as setting up Meena Club and fixing complaint/suggestion box in schools along with safety charts.
Women Safety: The programs shall build awareness among women on personal safety, economic empowerment, rights, law & health. Further, few women from these groups shall be identified for an intense paralegal training. The trained paralegals can help and support other women from their community in need of assistance. This will correspondingly have a resonating effect in their community by creating and empowering more voices to speak out against harassment.
Outreach: Further the program shall also run outreach campaign to encourage bystander intervention to spread the message ‘It Takes All of Us’ to create a safe environment for women and children.
“This is an important milestone in our B.SAFE agenda on safety of women and children and we thank Australia Aid and United Way of Bengaluru for their support “, said Revathy Ashok, CEO & Managing Trustee, B.PAC. BPAC has around 150 civic leaders across 108 wards of Bengaluru and they will be driving the program.
Speaking during the launch of this Partnership Program, Mr Sean Kelly, Australia’s Consul-General in India said he is delighted with this opportunity to roll this program and would look forward to continue the association with Bengaluru city.
Mr V.S. Ugrappa, MLC, who chaired a committee for Management of Crimes against women and children, GOK shared briefly his findings and said “The change should start from each one of us.”
Chitra Talwar, As Director, B.SAFE shared the details of the partner program and moderated the panel discussion comprising of experts who have worked closely and tirelessly with Governments and various organisations, including B.PAC for the cause of Safety of Children and Women. The panel members included Nina Nayak, former chairperson KSPCR, Suchitra Rao, Consultant UNICEF, Narmada Anand, Direcot (ICPS), Department of women and child, Government of Karnataka, Rupande Padiki, Founder P & P group and Ashok G.V Partner, TMT Law.
The panel members comprising of experts, agreed that policies and laws exist, its the implementation and enforcement that needs attention and a community led safety mindset will go a long way in ensuring a safer environment for our women and children.
B.PAC extends an open invitation to all those who are interested in this space to volunteer your time and join us in our efforts to make Bengaluru a safer place.
