Association for promoting Social Action (APSA)
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : l******0@g***l.c*m
Mission Statement
APSA's multi-pronged Mission is to: * Catalyze the process by which underprivileged and deprived communities use their own strengths and efforts to solve their problems and improve the quality of their lives * Develop new social paradigms within which comprehensive plans could create better lives for the communities with which we work * Enable social development rooted in justice and equity through local people's organizations devoted to social mobilization, raising awareness and economic and social empowerment * Ensure participation of populations frequently under-represented in development - especially women and children * Strengthen the expression of local cultures and issues through the use of traditional and folk forms of art, theater, literature and music
About This Cause
APSA is a child rights NGO registered in 1981 with more than 35 years' of presence and experience in work with marginalized communities in urban poor slums in Hyderabad (Telangana) and Bangalore (Karnataka) cities in South India. APSA began its work in Hyderabad in 1980 when its Founder Mr. P. Lakshapathi (who also serves as APSA's Executive Director) helped unorganized coolie workers in Secunderabad railway station fight for their rights. This pioneering work developed to include migrant construction workers and later on children and their mothers, youth and domestic workers on awareness of their entitlements and rights and protection of child rights in particular. with its motto 'Development without Exploitation' as its foundation stone, APSA today runs more than 25 extension (institutional) and outreach (community) projects, working across cultures and religious platforms with urban slum communities, in particular children in distress. The organization has been a pioneer in designing unique programs that combine grassroots-level work to address development issues of the urban poor, with sustained lobbying and advocacy for policy change at local, state and national levels. APSA's Vision is to 'work with the community at the grassroots, with the privileged sections of society and with the government towards preventing exploitation and marginalization of the underprivileged, and to evolve social paradigms based on values of justice and non-discrimination for those already in exploitative situations'. The objectives to achieving this include providing practical and strategic support to children in need of care and protection and children in distress; working with underprivileged and marginalized peoples in urban slums to bring about change in the quality of their lives; motivating such communities, in particular women and youth, to demand from the government their rights and entitlements as citizens; and sensitizing privileged sections of society, government and international community to the issues of the underprivileged and marginalized in urban slums. APSA's work is located within 100 slums in segments of 8 political assembly constituencies and based primarily on 4 thematic areas - child rights, gender empowerment, youth development & livelihoods and prevention of alcohol and substance abuse. Extension programs include running Open Shelters for children needing care and protection and adolescent girl survivors of trafficking and sexual abuse, skill training centres for equipping disadvantaged youth with market-relevant skills, a non-formal education school for urban poor children and school dropouts, a unit of the national 24x7 Childline (helpline) for children in distress, pre-schools (creches) for children of domestic and migrant construction workers, and a working hostel for young women into their first job. At community level, APSA organizes and guides Self-Help Groups (SHGs), collectivizes children and youth to negotiate with duty-bearers on their rights and entitlements, equips children in slum communities and government schools with lifeskills and adolescent health education, works with government schools to improve school infrastructure, teaching methods and thereby enable retention of girl children, takes up issues relating to alcohol and substance abuse through sensitization programs and collectivizes domestic workers and construction workers to access government welfare and benefits under the government Welfare Boards. APSA has also worked on issues of gender-based violence through a pilot initiative in partnership with a medical-research institute in which 30 SHG members from APSA's working area were trained to address incidents on GBV in communities and provide information on local support and resources to survivors of GBV. The 30 trainers have, in turn, trained more than 3,000 community women to handle GBV in families and local community. APSA actively works with civil society organizations and networks for pro-poor and child-friendly policies at local, state and national levels and the APSA Management represents on many national and state committees, including the Right To Education Taskforce, ICPS State Society, Committee for Urban Homeless, the State Advisory Committee on Child Labour, Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL), Karnataka, Childline India Foundation, the Karnataka Child Rights Observatory (KCRO) and the Taskforce on Alternative Care for Children Without Parental Care. The organization was part of the Drafting Committee for a Child Protection Policy that was passed in April 2016 in Karnataka state. APSA is currently on the Karnataka state Drafting Committee for the Girl Child Policy. With 35 years of grassroots' work with urban slums, more than 300,000 children and young people have benefited from APSA's intervention and the lives of nearly 40,000 individuals living in urban slum communities bettered through APSA's various outreach programs. APSA has been honoured with numerous state and national awards for its outstanding service to child rights and social development, including the award for Best NGO in the Field of Social Service in 2011 from the Department of Women & Child Development and again in 2015 from the Government of Telangana. The strength of APSA's work comes from its committed staff team of over 120 members - 75% of the staff are women with long years of experience working with children and marginalized groups, most of them coming from the communities and having been with APSA for over 20 years.