APSA Overview
Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA), a rights-based child-centered community development organization was established on 4th June 1981. APSA works towards the development of the community through a systematic process of empowerment. APSA's partners in its process are communities of street children, child labourers and other children in distress, including abandoned and runaway children, child victims of abuse and prostitution, children of sex workers as well as the larger communities of the urban slums.
APSA, with more than two decades of grassroots experience, combines paradigms of self-sufficiency at the micro level with advocacy campaigns and policy planning at the state and national levels. At the grassroots level APSA facilitates the empowerment of the urban poor through interconnected projects.
The projects of APSA are as follows:
- Street Community
- Nammane
- Sexual Health
- Child Help Line
- Vikas
- Skill Training
- Child Labour
- Self-Help Groups
- Slum Outreach
- Appropriate Education
- Juvenile Justice
- Navajeevana Nilaya
- Disability
- Inchara
When you come to APSA you will be exposed to four of our institutional projects. They are:
- Nammane (Our Home)a residential facility for street children, child labourers and children rescued from distress situations
- Rakshita - Crisis intervention centre,
- Kausalya - the vocational training centre
- The Dream School
Nammane: The regional residential training center for street and working children and a crisis intervention center for children in acute distress.Working with Street children and Child Labourers of Bangalore, APSA identified that the children in its programmes were in need of a place, which will protect them from the dangers on the streets and in their work place especially in the nights. As the danger was acute and was in the form of physical and sexual abuse, the organisation had to immediately initiate a solution to prevent further harm to the children. This initiative took the form of Nammane, which was started in Bangalore during the later months of 1991.
A night shelter that it was with a minimal nutritional component, Nammane, gradually began to evolve according to the requirements and genuine needs of children. Most of the requirements identified by the children stemmed out their exploitative backgrounds and were in a way to prevent the same. So Nammane which was started as a night shelter has evolved into an environment where children from various intense backgrounds can expect timely help and an appropriate alternative for their future. In tune with the present conditions related to children, the role of Nammane is multi faceted and caters to children, boys and girls from various walks of life including:
- Child labourers
- Street children
- Victims of Domestic violence
- Children who have undergone physical or sexual abuse
- Children in distress
- Abandoned children and
- Those who are rescued from dangerous situations
The situations that they come from either from the streets, work place, or from the slums are not conducive for the child's growth and development. If children are not provided care and adequate counseling in time, there are all possibilities that the child may loose its chance of having a secure future. There are also instances of street children being used for petty crimes by adults. Nammane breaks this vicious cycle of exploitation and provides appropriate alternatives to children from such background.
Over 2500 children have utilized the facilities of Nammane since 1991. More than half of them have graduated from our training centers and are working as professionals in their respective skills.
Kausalya: APSA 's state of the art training centers provide need based and appropriate skills to trainees as part of the strategy against Child labour. Over 2000 child labourers have graduated and have been favorably placed as professionals from our centers in the past decade. Relating to the current Market demand, the organisation focuses on imparting the appropriate skill at the highest quality possible. The current training programs include:
- Desk Top Publishing
- Tailoring
- Electrical
- Screen printing and Stationary
- Electronics
Details
Minimum/Maximum Number of Volunteers: 1-3
Length of Project: 3-12 months. APSA welcomes volunteer at any time during the year.
Description of work: Volunteers come frequently to APSA and there is a wide variety of projects the volunteers can take part in. Besides the projects listed below, there is a lot of flexibility for the volunteer, and the type of projects/acitivities the volunteer can do will depend on the skills and interests of the volunteer.
Previous activities/projects volunteers have taken part in:
- Teaching English
- Art classes for the children
- Music workshop
- Theatre workshop
- Research study
- Developing the website
- Teaching word processing to the children ( Sathyam Computers)
- Rearranging the library and donating books for the library
- Taking the audio visual classes for the school children.
- Teaching hotel management skills and life skills for the youth.
- Conducting photography classes for the school children and the youth and organizing an exhibition of all the photographs.
- Developing accounting software for the micro- credit project and for Nammane.
Location: APSA's different projects are located in and around Karnataka's capital Bangalore. The population of Bangalore is 2.5 million people.
Room and Board: For approximately the first month, the volunteer will stay in Nammane itself with the children. This is a great opportunity to get to know the children the volunteer will be working with for the rest of his/her stay and possible learn basic Kannada, the local language from the children. After a month, the volunteer can choose to stay in APSA or he/she can find accommodation elsewhere in or outside Bangalore city, either alone or with other volunteers.
Financial requirements for the volunteer: Meals will be taken in APSA, which charges 5 rupees for breakfast and 10 rupees for lunch and dinner. (approximately 0.10 and 0.20 USD respectively)
Specific requirements: It is not a must for the volunteer to know the local language Kannada prior to arrival, however it is expected that the volunteer is eager to learn, as it will make the communitcation between the children in APSA and the volunteer easier.
Smoking is not permitted within the premises of the organisation.
Additional information: In APSA the volunteer can make use of different facilities such as music instruments, PC/computer, DVD/VHS, camera, telephone and the library.
If you have any questions regarding this gap-year opportunity, you are very welcome to write to: muwci.gapyear@gmail.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
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