The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) Education Department is implementing a comprehensive awareness campaign to raise awareness about the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act among students in municipal schools. Under this initiative, boys and girls from classes 5 to 10 were guided about the POCSO Act in municipal schools across 24 administrative divisions of Mumbai. For this, the special play 'Abhaya' was used as the basis for the awareness campaign.
Presented in an interactive manner, the play provided information about safety, self-defense, recognising abuse, appropriate responses, the responsibility to report a complaint, and available legal protection. While providing school education to boys and girls, it is equally important to provide them with sex education. Highlighting this fact, the Education Department of the Municipal Corporation has launched this awareness campaign.
This initiative will be implemented from November 25 to December 3 and so far 19 experiments of Abhaya play have been presented. The remaining experiments will be presented as per the scheduled time.
Awareness about the POCSO Act is being created among students from Classes 5 to 10 through the play Abhaya, focusing on concepts such as good touch–bad touch, staying alert, and facing difficult situations without fear, along with various aspects of self-protection.
The play Abhaya is being presented by the Meena Naiks Creative Workshop organisation, and the initiative has received a positive response from students. The program aims to create awareness among girls about good touch and bad touch, and among boys about gender equality and respect, so that they understand the negative impacts of gender inequality and learn to respect women.
So far, the play has reached around 10,000 to 12,000 students. According to Education Officer Sujata Khare, an additional 4,000 students will be covered in the next phase of the awareness campaign.
Share
Tweet
