Safeguarding is a vital process that protects children and vulnerable adults from harm, abuse, exploitation and neglect. The safety and well-being of children and vulnerable adults are important as they encounter others due to the interplay of power of age, knowledge, position, and behaviour. Every person should live without harm, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or religion. It is vital that every vulnerable adult and child is kept safe. For any organisation to work with Community and community well-being and ensure safety for all, it has to have comprehensive safeguarding Policies and processes, which need to be operationalized.

Keeping this in mind, Caritas India had developed its own safeguarding policy and has disseminated the understanding of Safeguarding to all staff. Caritas India and CRS have been supporting and accompanying the Regional Fora in developing their own Safeguarding Policy and 50% of the Regions have drafted it while others are working on it. Caritas and CRS have joint hands on this effort and are currently building the capacity of the Regional Fora, on safeguarding with the intention of reaching out to all the Local partners in sensitizing them, Pan India.

Simultaneously as part of this effort, under the “Safety For All” Programme (SaFE Prog) a “Training of Trainers” (ToT) had recently been organised for the Regional Fora senior staff which was held from the 11th of Jan 2023 o 13th Jan 2023 at Navjivan Renewal Centre, Delhi. Twenty-Five senior Staff comprising the Regional Fora coordinators and other senior staff from 12 Regions, who will support this journey participated in the training. The ToT was inaugurated by Fr. Paul Moonjely, Executive Director of Caritas India. In his message, he highlighted the importance of respect and dignity of every individual as a human person. He shared the importance of safeguarding our organisations and all those engaged in community development and caregiving initiatives. He emphasized on the important cardinal principles namely Preparedness, prevention, proportionality, Protection, Partnership and Accountability. He summed up by saying that every person is valued and respected.

The Module for this TOT comprises initial input sessions on the understanding of safeguarding, revisiting the concept with some examples, exercises on policy assessment, conceptual clarity and understanding of standards. The major component was the “Teach back” session by the participants on how they will organise or conduct sensitization or orientation sessions for their own Regional staff and further with the local partners (DSSSs and other organisations/affiliates). Every Region developed their own action plan and submitted it. The participants expressed contentment with the module and how they will apply it in their personal life and work