This is a sample description for Children. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Childrenchildrenchildren.

Children

This is a sample description for Community & Rural Development. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Community & Rural DevelopmentCommunity & Rural DevelopmentCommunity & Rural Development.

Community & Rural Development

Geetanjali

Millions of children are trafficked in India each year. According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, trafficked children are used for prostitution, forced into marriage, illegally adopted, used as cheap or unpaid labour, used for sport, and used for organ harvesting.But most are forced into prostitution, usually after having been kidnapped and coerced into sexual slavery on promises of schooling, jobs or marriage. There are millions of people in prostitution in India - and an estimated 40% of them are children. They are held captive in brothels against their will where they are beaten and sexually exploited, and suffer from communicable diseases and even death.Globally, 98% of sex slaves are women and girls; only 1% of these girls will be rescued. 
 From 2014, Operation Red Alert of My Choices Foundation has been working to end sex trafficking in India by preventing girls from ever entering it, i.e. the prevention model. We built relationships with NGOs in the field, listened to their concerns about the gaps in the national response, and conducted landmark research into compulsions behind the behaviour of men who buy and sell girls for sex. Based on this award winning research, we developed the Safe Village Program with messages that inspires lasting change.Our Safe Village Program has been designed to help people at all literacy levels understand human trafficking and prevent it from happening in their village. We designed a comic book, available in the local language of each area we work in, to provide education on human trafficking, and information on how to report any case that arises. It is a powerful tool for education, awareness, and action. We aim to educate every key stakeholder living in high-risk villages in India on how to identify and prevent human trafficking, and thereby transform thousands of villages in India into “Safe Villages”.Operation Red Alert founded and operates the Red Alert Helpline (1800 419 8588), which is the only national helpline dedicated to responding to cases of human trafficking. 
 Operation Red Alert, through its work, has created more than 4,400 “Safe Villages” in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Our Anti Trafficking Helpline has received over 45,000 phone calls from across the country.Every day we receive stories of people from safe villages calling our helpline not just to report about possible traffickers but also to inform us about child marriages and missing persons cases. Operation Red Alert then coordinates with its strong network of partners and police to follow up on the reported cases.With your help, Operation Red Alert can continue to reach villages to educate children (and their parents) on the signs and dangers of trafficking to ensure that our girls remain safe.

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Ending Large Scale Sex Trafficking in India

This is a sample description for Women Empowerment. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Women EmpowermentWomen EmpowermentWomen Empowerment.

Women Empowerment

This is a sample description for Human Rights. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Human RightsHuman RightsHuman Rights.

Human Rights

Adolescent girls are the most vulnerable group in our society. India has been labeled the most dangerous place on earth to be born a girl because of the neglect and discrimination they face throughout their life. There are a multitude of barriers to their personal and professional happiness and life opportunities such as lack of education, gender discrimination, early marriage, domestic violence and sexual abuse to name a few. Simply put, they do not have equal opportunity to access their own human rights.One of the biggest challenges that adolescent girls face in India is early marriage. In India, 47% of girls are married before the age of 18, and 22% of women between the ages of 22-24 years old have had a child before the age of 18. Girls who get married early are most likely to drop out of school, face domestic violence, and have high risk pregnancies. Early marriage also leaves girls unprepared for child rearing, and helps perpetuate a cycle of vulnerability for future generations. 
 Shakti is a long-term (12 - 15 month) mentorship program for girls journeying through adolescence. They face harsh realities, and usually have no one to turn to that will help them solve their problems. Through Shakti we will implement a multifold approach in helping girls, where girls are: connected to a peer network; supported and empowered to recognise risk and develop strategies to resist pressures of child marriage, dangerous work, and being pulled out of school; provided access to services; trained to negotiate for themselves and develop healthy relationships; supported to articulate aspirations and take steps towards achieving their life goals. The peer network that provides the girls a safe space to talk about their lives is the foundation of the Shakti program.The Shakti program holds adolescent girl’s safety as the utmost priority. The goal is to target some of the most difficult areas to support, and empower children, families, communities and government authorities to recognize the risks for violence, abuse, exploitation, neglect and exclusion from services that children face and to know how to prevent them. 
 Each Shakti Circle identifies 1 top community safety issue and develops a Community Project to address it. Shakti Leaders work with the girls to establish the necessary support from local service providers, government, and police to complete the project and achieve the girls’ safety goals. Shakti empowers the girls to firstly identify what is making their community unsafe, and helping them work together to make it safer.The girls coming for Shakti are completely aware of all the dangers surrounding them. They know about trafficking, they know about the frustrations of getting married young, about sexual abuse, about being harassed by men. What they want from us is the tools and the skills to tackle these perils. They want to know how to be assertive, how to refuse, how to stand up for themselves and the other girls around them.The support available through Shakti Circles for young girls, with education on self development enables them to take control of their lives. Parents of Shakti girls likewise benefit from awareness about the various government support programs and schemes that relieve the burden on parents trying to make their daughters’ bright futures possible.

SuperSmart Shakti Girls Safety Network

There is widespread domestic violence within our varied people-groups in India. While official statistics point to an estimated 20,00,00,000 women (i.e. 31.1% of women in India) who experience domestic violence, this number is restricted to married women in the 15-49 age group only, and the number of unreported cases of domestic violence is staggeringly higher.* In addition to domestic violence, many women in India still endure fear and violence under practices such as dowry harassment/death, honour killings, and sati or widow-burning, even in the twenty-first century. Women and girls in urban and rural India suffer violence in the form of verbal, physical, sexual, financial and emotional abuse by men who are their spouses or biological relatives. The hesitation or reluctance to come forward with complaints of violence and abuse stems from the common view that domestic violence is an accepted form of behaviour in the patriarchal home, and this makes women in our country more vulnerable and susceptible to violence. *National Family Health Survey 2015-2016 (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India) 
 Operation PeaceMaker of My Choices Foundation has multiple intervention and prevention strategies to address the problem of gender-based violence. The core of Operation PeaceMaker are the PeaceMakers. PeaceMakers are local women trained by us to be paralegal workers who will go on to educate women and children on their rights, and prevent abuse by running awareness workshops. The PeaceMakers and other program staff conduct a variety of short term and long term awareness workshops in schools, colleges, communities and corporate offices.  We have 5 counselling centres in Telangana which provide free support to victims of domestic violence through qualified counsellors and lawyers. When required, they serve as the mediator between the woman (client) and the police and courts if the issue requires legal attention. Operation PeaceMaker focuses on men as the solution rather than the problem. In addressing domestic violence, Operation PeaceMaker has built a team of good men who are examples that breaking the cycle of abuse is possible. Operation PeaceMaker’s counsellors and case workers are trained to counsel men with equal empathy and equal determination, knowing that if men do not become a willing part of the change, then the abuse will only continue. 
 We have trained over 232 PeaceMakers and run 5 support and counselling centres which have resolved over 8,000 cases of domestic violence and abuse. Our 232 PeaceMakers, who have been trained over a span of 5 years, and have reached out to over 71,000 women and 45,000 children to educate them about violence against women and children, gender equality, and empowerment.  Each PeaceMaker provides services to around 50 families each year. That's 50 women living free from abuse and violence, 50 perpetrators who have re-learned what it means to be part of the solution, and 50 families who have discovered the peace that homes deserve. Crucially, it also means 50 homes in which children are growing up learning that violence is never acceptable. It is important that our solution to these problems is adaptable to the local women in the community, feasible, sustainable and relief-based while respecting religious and community sentiments. Importantly, the solution should respect the choice of the woman.

Ending Gender Based Violence in India

In India, it is estimated that 1 in 3 women face domestic violence. Most women do not speak about abuse as fear has been planted in their minds and they do not have the resources to support them. Most women facing abuse are either financially or emotionally dependent on their abusive partner and this makes it impossible to escape the abuse. While the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 mandates protection through shelter homes, they are oftentimes overcrowded. Without access to shelter homes or financial and legal aid, women are forced to continue facing abuse. 
 It has been proven through multiple studies that domestic violence shelters address compelling needs that survivors cannot meet elsewhere. They provide a complex array of services to victims of abuse and their children - safety, information, help with children and emotional distress. While My Choices Foundation has been providing counselling and legal services to women facing abuse, the Lotus Safe Home provides a loving, peaceful and safe environment for women and children in crisis.  
 With access to a shelter home which nourishes and supports women and children in crisis, the women will be able to transform themselves from victims to survivors of domestic violence. As a survivor, she would have reclaimed the agency in her life and have the capacity to support people who are dependant on her. She would have made the choice to be free from abuse and follow the path she has chosen for herself. The Lotus Safe Home will enable the transformation of thousands of such survivors.

Safe Home for Survivors of Domestic Violence

This is a sample description for Disaster Relief. For the purpose of testing I will use the wordDisaster ReliefDisaster ReliefDisaster Relief.

Disaster Relief

This is a sample description for Environment For the purpose of testing I will use the word Hunger & HomelessnessHunger & HomelessnessHunger & Homelessness.

Hunger & Homelessness

COVID-19 has created an uncertain and stressful situation for many people around the world. But for vulnerable communities in rural India such as migrant workers and daily wage laborers, the situation is particularly alarming due to the limited flow of essential goods and limited access to basic needs such as drinking water and staple foods. Furthermore, with no income due to the nationwide lockdown, the impacted families are placed in an increasingly vulnerable state and are exposed to people attempting to exploit their condition. Indicated by research, human traffickers use natural disasters and pandemics such as COVID-19 to exploit vulnerable communities. 
 From the end of March 2020, My Choices Foundation has been distributing the following items to people in rural communities: rice, pulses, mustard oil, wheat flour, potatoes, salt, sugar, and also soap. Through our NGO network, we are identifying people in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, and West Bengal who have little to no access to essential goods and ensuring that they are distributed to them using safe social distancing practices. In addition to the distribution, we are also educating people on safe health/hygiene practices approved by the World Health Organization to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and raising awareness on what is trafficking, how to traffickers operate, how to prevent it from occurring in their neighborhoods, and ensuring that they are equipped with leave-behind tools such as our national helpline (1800 419 8588) in case of emergencies related to trafficking. *My Choices Foundation has reached over 2,380,000 people in over 4,000 villages with our anti-trafficking awareness programs since 2016. 
 With your support, we can continue to work together to alleviate the suffering of vulnerable communities in rural India and ensure that the necessary nationwide COVID-19 lockdown does not cause immense hardship. Many migrant workers and daily wage laborers may not be in their home towns or villages and with no income, they are undoubtedly suffering due to COVID-19. In addition to the pandemic, we want to ensure that people are not suffering due to hunger, malnutrition, starvation, and exploitation.100% of your donation will go toward the purchase and distribution of essential goods for people in need.

COVID-19 Rural Relief Distribution

The economic hardships brought onto families during the pandemic have raised serious concerns around sex trafficking. My Choices Foundation aims to target vulnerable villages across eight states to promote the Safe Village program through their resources and materials to ensure that the community evolves as a whole to fight this social evil. A contribution of ₹500 shall enable reaching out to five children with safety and awareness message using comic books as tools.Every few minutes, a girl is trafficked in India. Only 1% of these girls are being rescued. Sex trafficking is mostly invisible and under-reported. With the coronavirus pandemic that has put the world on lockdown and people feeling uncertain about the future, traffickers have adjusted their business model to the ‘new normal’. They capitalize the opportunity to target vulnerable populations ranging from out-of-school children to jobless people, especially by abusing modern technologies for grooming and trapping the victims. It is estimated that of the 15 million women that are victims of sex trafficking in India each year, 40% are adolescents and children, some as young as nine years old. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), from the 15,379 humans trafficked in 2016 in India, 9,034 were children below the age of 18 years. Among these, 4,911 were girls and 4,123 were boys.Traffickers are always on the lookout for people living in poverty, lacking employment opportunities, following age-old harmful cultural practices, and encountering greater socio-economic divides.Since the pandemic has only aggravated the situation, it is imperative that we create awareness about the issue while also empowering people with essential skills and tools to help protect themselves from traffickers. 
 My Choices Foundation aims to end large scale sex trafficking in India through our flagship programme - Safe Village Program and by building an army of volunteers who sustain the awareness created during this programme. We train implementing partners (IP) who conduct the Safe Village Programs (SVP). During the SVP, we distribute a customised comic book that has the characters- The Good father, Informed Mother, Cool Boy and Guardian Girl. These characters are created to deliver the message of the ills of child marriage and the ways to spot signs of trafficking in the village. Each character appeals to each one of our target audiences: The Good Father inspires fathers to be alert and encourages them to keep their daughters in school; The Informed Mother motivates mothers to speak up when there's abuse; The Guardian Girl empowers girls to look not just after themselves but also other girls in the village; The Cool Boy encourages boys to be respectful and be an agent of change. Furthermore, to ensure that the children have understood the message, we scripted a play about a family affected by trafficking, which the children perform. We also operate an anti-trafficking helpline - 1800 419 8588.  
 The Safe Village Program will help in generating community awareness in vulnerable villages and help the people spot signs of trafficking. We will be targeting vulnerable villages across 8 states - Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Maharastra.Through our targeted messaging we will be creating Guardian Girls and Cool Boys who will be aware of the dangers of sex trafficking and child marriage. They will also be taught to ensure the safety of themselves as well as their friends. We will empower them to take action against injustices by contacting our village volunteers and our anti-trafficking helpline who will help in counselling the families while also protecting the children. This programme will help in building broader community awareness about right values and equal rights; increase risk perceptions of traffickers within the targeted village’s communities.

Empowering Children to create Safe Villages

A large number of children who are abandoned, abducted or have run away from their homes are stranded at railway stations where they are exposed to emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Many children get separated from their guardians while travelling and these children are vulnerable targets for human traffickers. Furthermore, they suffer from fear and deprivation and their situation is worsened by the lack of food and shelter. The CHILDLINE help desk at railway stations is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Women and Child Development and Indian Railways and provides help for children in distress. In January 2019, My Choices Foundation was selected to run the 24-hour operational CHILDLINE help desk at Nampally Railway Station through our program Operation Red Alert. The help desk provides immediate attention to unaccompanied children found at Nampally Railway Station. We have been allotted a prime space on platform number 4 which is 50 meters from the main entrance. It is a strategic location which gives us a bird's eye view of the entire station as well as being visible to all passengers passing through the station. 
 In addition to CHILDLINE services, we give a special Child Care Package to comfort and ease the distress of each rescued child. The Child Care Package is a bag that contains: - a set of clothing- a toothbrush- toothpaste- soap- sanitary- products for girls- a toy (either a puzzle or a teddy bear)- a packet of biscuits- a book to read- pencils- a notebook- a towel - and a pair of slippersThese items are given to each child who is rescued from Nampally Railway Station before they are safely reunited with their families or placed in safe homes. 
 Since the inauguration of the help desk at Nampally Railway Station in January 2019, we have identified at least one missing child a day, and have thus far, been able to rescue over 60 children in total. We designed this Child Care Package having seen the lack of basic facilities with children who are found at the railway station. Until we reunite them with their families or place them in safe homes, we aim to provide as much comfort and happiness as we possibly can. When you donate to this project, you will help us purchase the materials to put together a Child Care Package that will provide comfort to each child in distress.

Help Children Who Are Rescued At The Railway Station

My Choices Foundation is committed to giving women and girls the choices to live lives free from abuse, violence and exploitation. We accomplish this through two main initiatives addressing two of the most prevalent and intractable issues in India: domestic violence through Operation PeaceMaker and child trafficking through Operation Red Alert.Operation PeaceMaker aims to stop domestic violence by training and employing local women called PeaceMakers to work within their own communities providing counselling, rights education and legal aid to create meaningful change in the lives of victims and their families. Our PeaceMakers and counsellors have helped over 8,000 families resolve cases of domestic abuse, and have invested over 100,000 field hours supporting victims and their families to break the cycle of abuse and transform communities.Operation Red Alert works to end large scale sex trafficking in India by 2025 through leading the prevention-based awareness programs. Operation Red Alert has reached over 2,380,000 people in over 4,200 villages in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana and West Bengal with the Safe Village Program. The Safe Village program has distributed over 1,168,000 comic books and is backed up by a national helpline (1800 419 8588) which has received over 37,800 calls for help from trafficking, child marriage and other issues.

Donations through Give Foundation, registered under section 80G of India's Income Tax Act, 1961 are tax-deductible.

Donations through Give Foundation, Inc. a registered US 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Organization, are tax-deductible.

Donations through GIVE, a registered charity in UK, are covered under Gift Aid

Shirley Bobby

My Choices Foundation

This nonprofit is registered as a charitable trust under section 12A of India's Income Tax Act, 1961.

This nonprofit is registered under section 80G of India's Income Tax Act, 1961. This means you can deduct 50% of the donation you made through your tax return.

This nonprofit is registered under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010. This means it can accept donations from foreign nationals.

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