Through a community policing initiative in South Goa called ‘Prayaas’, the police is reaching out to people living in slums areas and spreading awareness about their rights, and crimes against women and youths. Prayaas aims to enable the slum dwellers to know about their basic rights, keep youths away from indulging in criminal or unlawful activities, and curb the exploitation of women and children by spreading awareness, through both social and legal mechanism.
For this, awareness sessions are being organised in the slums, focusing largely on preventive measures.
Indian Masterminds interacted with South Goa SP, Abhishek Dhania, a 2012-batch IPS officer, to know more about this initiative.
PRAYAAS
Some of the important measures that the police will take up in this programme are sensitization about crime against women and children, interactive session with women and children and youth, focussing on unlawful activities that are reported from such areas.
Then there is the Samadhan initiative for grievance redressal, social welfare programme including de-addiction campaign in collaboration with NGOs, free medical health camps in collaboration with local PHCs, sports activities including extra-curricular activities for children and youths to channelize their energy towards positive direction.
Skill development is another important programme under this initiative, including career counselling programme for the youth, and so is traffic awareness. And, last but not the least is the ‘Know Your Neighbour’ and tenant and servant verification programme.
“People living in slum areas are largely those belonging to low income groups, migrants and daily wagers. They tend to either get involved in criminal activities or become victims of crime due to acute socio-economic imbalance. Women and children are more vulnerable to exploitation, and owing to lack of awareness, such incidents often go unreported at police stations. In order to counter such issues and to create awareness among this vulnerable section of society, we have initiated this programme called ‘Prayaas’,” Mr. Dhania said.
EXECUTION
As part of the initiative, South Goa Police is organizing interactive sessions, wherein the people are explained the salient features of the schemes in respect of community policing in slums. Sub-Divisional Police Officers and other officials explain to the residents of slum areas about the different components of ‘Prayaas’. Suggestions are then invited from the audience, where they can also raise their grievances if any and also request for police intervention for ensuring peace and safety in their area.
BENEFITS
The benefits are already visible, as not only people are more aware about their rightsnow, but they are also eager to attend the sessionsheld by the police. Mr. Dhania said, “This initiative is giving positive results in less time. People are taking much interest in the sessions that are being organized by South Goa Police. Prayaas is producing the results that we had envisaged while initiating it.”
