Jnana Prabodhini Samshodhan Sanstha and Stree Shakti Prabodhan Samvadini Group have been working on the problem of child sexual abuse for the past eight years for awareness-concrete effort-concrete action against child sexual abuse. Till date more than 800 trainers have been trained in Pune city and districts. Through the collective efforts of all, the topic of ‘Knowing Good and Bad Touch’ has been conveyed to nearly one and a half lakh children.

  As a next step, the project ‘Good Touch, Bad Touch 360°’ is being carried out in Pune city with the financial support from ‘Bajaj Finance’ for the period 2022 to 2024. “Distinguishing between good and bad touch and how to resist bad touch” has been taught to 27000+ students in Pune city in the academic year 2022-23. Also, awareness sessions are being conducted for parents and school management.

In order to understand the scope and depth of the subject, a seminar “We hear you” (एक कान आस्थेचा) was held on Saturday, April 1st, 2023. At the beginning of the seminar, the project coordinator Shamangi Deshpande gave the project brief. In the seminar, Dr. Mrinmayee Sathe interviewed Dr. Anuradha Sahasrabuddhe (Director–Dyanadevi Institute), Dr. Meenakshi Nalable (Paediatric Surgeon) and Dr. Mukul Joshi (Representative of Responsible Netism). All three key speakers shared their experiences and thoughts on what can be done to prevent such incidents from happening. Field trainers of the project were felicitated with certificates. Director of Jnana Prabodhini’s Institute of Psychology while concluding called for active participation to reach this awareness campaign far and wide. The program was moderated by Mrs. Ashwini Deshpande.

Another important event was launching of “Emotional Wellbeing Telelogue Platform” (दूरध्वनी बाल संवाद कट्टा) for the children and their parents. Children and parents can contact 9226074767 from Monday to Saturday from 9 am to 6 pm and have a dialogue with an expert counsellor for any type of queries related to emotional wellbeing of children or issues like exam stress, fear, punishment, peer pressure, anxiety etc. The counselor will empathetically listen and respond to the caller and provide advice or reference contact numbers as required.