About Childline Visakahapatnam in Allipuram, Vizag

CHILDLINE is a national, 24-hour, free, emergency telephone helpline and outreach service for children in need of care and protection. It aims at giving a helping hand to Children in difficult circumstances such as a street child, a working child or an abused child. Apart from crises intervention, CHILDLINE also links children to long-term services. Any child or a concerned adult can call 1098 free of cost and avail of the service at any time of the day or night. CHILDLINE aims at creating a child protection network to reach out to every child. CHILDLINE was initiated in June 1996 as a field action project of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, when several street children who required support anytime, anywhere, felt the need for such a service. Looking at its success, in 1998, the programme was taken up as a project of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. It was shifted in 2006 to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Govt. of India. As on July 2015, CHILDLINE is currently operational in 329 cities across 31 States/UTs in India and providing services for work towards child protection that has evolved through a partnership between the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, State Governments, NGOs, international donors, the corporate sector, concerned individuals and children.

CHILDLINE was initiated on 22 January 2001 in the Department of social work, Andhra University as a field action Project, under the UGC DRS Programme. Prof.B.Devi Prasad, a senior faculty of the department, during his research on children observed that there were several street children in Visakhapatnam city needing support and attention. He brought CHILDLINE services to Visakhapatnam by requesting Ms.Jeroo Billimoria, the then director of CHILDLINE India foundation, Mumbai. As a result of his efforts this field action project was started under Prof.B.Vijaya Lakshmi, the when convener of UGC DRS Programme in the department of social work. The department is the Nodal organization for CHILDLINE Visakhapatnam. The ARDAR, an NGO for Rural Development was taken as CHILDLINE Collab and Mr Ramana Rao is the Director of the Collab. The department is the NODAL Organisation is taken over by Prof. P. Arjun, Head, Dept. of social work, Andhra University in 2012. As on October 2015, around 2, 88,858 calls have been received by CHILDLINE Visakhapatnam from children and concerned others and necessary help and interventions have been provided for the needy.
Since its inception every year a minimum of 3 workshops are organized by CHILDLINE Nodal under National Initiative for Child protection. These are sponsored by National Institute of Social Defence, New Delhi. These workshops are aimed at bringing awareness about child rights and child protection, and the role and importance of CHILDLINE in the protection of the rights of children. These workshops were organized for the personnel of CRPF, Police and Judiciary, School Teachers. Telephone Booth Operators, Railway porters etc who generally first come in touch with the children in need of Care and protection. Also every year CHILDELINE Nodal Organization organizes workshops on different issues related to children like, Open House for Children, Child Sexual Abuse, POCSO Act & JJ Act, Child Rights etc, conducting CHILDLINE Advisory Board meetings, conducting reviews on International and national child related policies, observes important International and National days, celebrates Diwali, Rakhee, Birthdays of Children street and working children, conducting awareness programmers, special programmes and including celebrating ‘Karo CHILDLINE Se Dosti’ etc in association with resource organizations and allied departments since inception to September 2015.