How we started:
Enfold proactive Health Trust is  registered  in Bangalore.  The main thrust of our work is towards ensuring child safety. Two gynaecologists, Dr Sangeeta Saksena and Dr Shaibya Saldanha started this trust in 2001. Working as gynaecologists in a medical college, they used to see many young people coming with problems- like young girls may be 10^th or 12^th std girls coming with pregnancies, wanting abortions. Another  growing problem was of HIV. A young man had come with his wife for a routine pregnancy check up. HIV screening of the wife was advised and that came positive. When asked how she might have got the infection, she said that she had never been sick, never received any injections or blood transfusions. She was married for just 8 months. The husband was then screened and his test too came positive.  He also said that he had never been sick and never had multiple partners etc. However, after thinking for a while, he said that yes, only once, before his marriage his uncle had asked him if he knew about sex and how it is done. To which he replied that he had a fair idea, but had never done it. The uncle said that this won’t do. He must know all about it before marriage. So they went to a sex worker. This was the one and only time he went like this.

Now this young man never for a moment thought that he could get HIV this way. It was sad, because of no awareness, no information, he , his wife and  maybe his child too were HIV positive. Instances like these prompted the two gynaecologists to start an organization dedicated to spreading awareness and authentic information about sexuality and personal safety.

How safe is our child?

How safe is our child in today’s world? Now-a-days a child is bombarded by so many messages, so much information – often contradictory! Right from day one the child sees attractive advertisements for junk foods, the child grows up in a polluted environment, both physically and metaphorically polluted! Children are shown in sexualized poses, women are shown as sexual objects in daily newspapers. As the child grows and begins to play games, especially if it is a male child, he is very likely to be completely engrossed in  the ubiquitous violent video games. Physical and emotional abuse is of course rampant – almost a norm.  They also see images and get messages that the girl child is not welcome.  There is a lot of violence and a lot of shall we say, questionable role models whose behaviour is not always ‘ role- mode-lable’ – exhibiting undesirable methods of conflict resolution! Then of course there are scams and corruption and addictions.  Certainly there are good things about our society too -like ‘Chak De”! Yes! But on the whole children feel extremely stressed by the time they are grown up and say, appearing for their board exams! There is a lack of information and guidance in many matters. A lot of our children face sexual abuse. There are the direct reports we get of child abuse and child sexual abuse in particular that are unnerving to say the least.

Our calling:

We looked at what we wanted to do, where we wanted to make a difference. We chose  children’s emotional wellbeing and personal safety. This is not to belittle the importance of physical well being, nutrition and growth of the child – there is a dire need for this too as nearly 50% of our children are undernourished. There are many governmental and non governmental organizations working on this. Our calling was to do pioneering work in the area of sexuality in India – we took up a taboo subject  and made people aware of what ignoring this inherent part of our lives was doing to the safety and well being of our children. We wanted to have  healthy, safe and self expressed children and we wanted to achieve this through parents.  Parents are and will remain the first teachers of a child. But Indian parents are not trained in talking about sexuality with their kids. So we decided to empower them in the area of sexuality, life skills and personal safety; besides talking with the kids directly.

We started our work with high school students and parents in 2001. We covered physical and emotional changes of adolescence, HIV and HIV prevention strategies like abstinence, being faithfull and use of contraceptives. We thought with this our job will be done!

But this was certainly not enough. Why?

… because child sexual abuse generally starts around 5 yrs of age! And by the time the child is in high school, when most sexuality programs start, for many children, we have missed the boat!

…because 53% of our children reported sexual abuse in a govt of India study of 12,446 children in 13 different states, and there was hardly any difference in the different socio economic strata. So we are looking at half the population which has been abused

…because sexuality and personal safety education is not mandatory in Indian schools

So we expanded our work, to start with first standard kids and include personal safety in our curriculum. As we were designing this curriculum, Dr Sangeeta got a call. It was on a Saturday night around 10.30. There was a boy at the other end. He said he was in 10^th std and on Monday he had his board exam . He was worried and nervous because he was not well prepared. There was traffic noise in the back ground and it was clear that he was calling from a public booth. Now, around board exams we have a spate of suicides among students. Dr Sangeeta was worried. She counselled him for quite a while, asked him if he was from an English medium school – and he said he was. She told him that he had learnt English for 10 years. He knew enough. All he needed to do was sleep and rest and go write the exam on Monday. It worked out fine because he later emailed saying he had got good grades and he was now in a PUC college.

But the phone call made us think. When this boy was under extreme stress, he did not talk to his parents, his family, his friends, his teachers or even his neighbours! He chose to call a lady who had come, may be thrice or 5 times to his class, spoke about some stuff , left her number and went! Apparently there is a need of the students which is not being met by the current schooling system. Our parenting practices are also falling short.

Brain Storming:
So  Dr Sangeeta, Dr Shaibya, Ms Meena who is achild development expert and Dr Shekhar – child psychiatrist from NIMHANS – had a brain storming session and decided to include Life Skills, sexuality and personal safety in our curriculum for schools. Work with parents would also include all these topics.

The curriculum was heavy – but we were sure we would succeed because children learn quickly!

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