OUR JOURNEY
Aangan began with a simple but urgent question: What does it take to keep a child safe?
It started inside a government childcare institution in Mumbai, working with children who had already experienced severe harm. Over the years, listening to children changed our understanding of what safety requires, taking us from responding to harm after it happens to preventing it before it begins.
Today, that means working alongside children, families, communities, and public systems to make safety part of everyday life.
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2000
Founded
Aangan is founded with a mission to make India safer for its most vulnerable children.
2002 – 2005
Learning from survivors
Working closely with child survivors of trafficking, labour, child marriage, exploitation, and abuse in government childcare institutions in Mumbai and Bhiwandi gives us a deeper understanding of what children need to recover from harm — and what needs to change to protect them.
2006 - 2008
Bringing children's voices into the system
Changing Spaces, our action report capturing the experiences of rescued children, brings their voices to the attention of Maharashtra's Department of Women and Child Development.
Aangan is subsequently appointed by the state to monitor 100 childcare institutions and help improve the treatment and care children receive.
2009 – 2013
Raising the standard of care
In partnership with UNICEF, Aangan introduces India's first tool for measuring standards of care in state-run childcare institutions. Child Welfare Departments across 16 states adopt our monitoring and capacity-building approach, extending the work to 650 institutions serving 150,000 child survivors.
But something else becomes clear: reaching children after they have been harmed isn't enough.
Recognising that many children in government childcare institutions came from the same high-risk communities, we shifted our focus towards prevention. We launched programs Shakti for girls and Chauraha for boys, working with children, families, and local governments to reduce risk before harm occurred.
Moving from response to prevention
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2013 – 2016
Making safety everyone's business
Aangan launches PACT — Parents and Children Against Trafficking and Harm — based on a growing conviction that preventing harm requires the participation of the whole community. Across 86 locations in six states, children, families, community volunteers, and government officials begin working together to identify risks earlier and act before they become crises.
The approach helps make 300,000 children safer.
2017 – 2022
From hotspots to safer communities
Across six districts with high rates of child harm, Aangan brought together children, women, police, schools, panchayats, and other local officials around a shared system for prevention. Community-led data identifies where children are at risk. Children build peer safety networks. Women raise concerns directly with authorities. Officials have the information they need to respond.
Safety becomes something communities can see, track, and act on together.
2022 – 2026
From community to public action
Years of community-based learning begin to influence the way public systems work. Police, schools and local governments adopt approaches that strengthen child safety, while women volunteers and adolescent girls become active partners in shaping local responses.
More than two decades after we began, one thing hasn't changed: children show us where safety is breaking down.
Our job is to make sure the people and systems around them are ready to listen — and act.