How children and adults at risk are kept safe.

Annmaya Foundation cooks and serves food to children and to adults who are unwell, elderly, displaced or living on the street. Volunteers stand beside those people, and photographs from those distributions are published on this site. That combination — children, volunteers and cameras — is exactly where harm happens if nobody has written down what is and is not allowed. This policy writes it down.

It says who it binds, what we will not tolerate, what we do before someone works alongside a child, how we handle photographs and personal information, and how a person raises a concern and what happens after they do. It is meant to be used by a volunteer on their first distribution, by a parent who is unhappy about something, and by a donor who wants to know the rules before giving.

Who this policy applies to

It applies to everyone acting in Annmaya’s name, whether paid or not, whether present for one afternoon or every week:

• Trustees and anyone holding a governance role.
• Staff, however they are engaged.
• Volunteers, including one-day and group volunteers.
• Interns, students on placement, and people on trial before a role is confirmed.
• Donors, sponsors and company teams who join a distribution.
• Photographers, videographers and journalists we allow to attend.
• Contractors, cooks, drivers and suppliers who come into contact with the people we serve.
• Partner organisations working with us on a shared activity, for the duration of that activity.

It protects everyone we come into contact with through our work, and it applies wherever that work happens: a kitchen, a street distribution, a school, a shelter, a hospital, a home visit, a vehicle, a messaging group or this website.

Our commitment

Feeding someone is not a favour that buys us access to them. The people we serve owe us nothing — not a photograph, not a story, not gratitude, not their personal information. Everything below follows from that.

• The safety and dignity of a child or an adult at risk comes before our reputation, before a donor relationship, before a photograph and before a distribution going ahead on time.
• We assume every child and every adult at risk is entitled to be safe with us, whatever their caste, religion, gender, disability, language, migration status or family situation.
• We listen to a concern the first time it is raised, from anybody, including a child and including an anonymous sender.
• We never treat a concern as a nuisance, and we never ask a person to prove it before we look into it.
• We act on a concern about our own people with the same seriousness as a concern about anyone else.
• We co-operate with the police, child protection authorities and other statutory bodies, and we do not attempt to settle a criminal matter privately.
• We tell the truth about what happened, including when what happened reflects badly on us.

What we mean by harm and abuse

These are the categories we use so that a volunteer and a reviewer are describing the same thing. A single act can fall into several of them.

• Physical abuse: hitting, slapping, pushing, shaking, burning, restraining, or any other deliberate physical hurt, including so-called discipline.
• Emotional and psychological abuse: shouting, humiliating, threatening, ridiculing, isolating, bullying, or making a person feel worthless or afraid.
• Sexual abuse and sexual exploitation: any sexual act, touch, exposure, language, image or approach involving a child, or involving an adult who has not freely consented, and any use of our position to obtain a sexual act or image.
• Neglect: failing to act when a person in our care is hungry, hurt, ill, lost or in danger and we could have helped.
• Financial exploitation: taking money, food, goods or labour from a person we serve, or from a volunteer, for private benefit.
• Exploitation of the relationship: giving or withholding food, a place in a distribution, or any other help in exchange for anything at all.
• Discrimination and harassment: treating a person worse, or making them unwelcome, because of who they are.
• Harm through publication: publishing an image, a name, a location or a detail that exposes a person to shame, to reprisal or to being found by someone they are hiding from.
• Online harm: contacting a child privately, grooming, sending or requesting images, or using a phone or messaging group to build a relationship with a child outside our activity.

A child is anyone under eighteen. An adult at risk is an adult who, because of age, illness, disability, mental health, destitution, displacement or dependence on us, is less able to protect themselves. We do not require certainty about which category a situation falls into before it is reported.

What we expect of everyone acting in our name

Always:

• Stay in the open. Work where other adults can see you, and keep group activities to more than one adult wherever it is possible.
• Treat every person you meet with courtesy, and use their own name if they offer it.
• Let a child decide whether to be touched, photographed or spoken to, and accept a refusal without arguing.
• Serve food in the order and quantity the distribution sets, and give the same to everyone entitled to it.
• Report a concern the same day you have it, even if you are unsure, even if it is about a colleague, and even if you may be wrong.
• Follow instructions from the person leading the distribution, and say so if an instruction feels wrong.

Never:

• Be alone with a child or an adult at risk where you cannot be seen, including in a vehicle, a room with a closed door or a separate part of a building.
• Hit, shake, restrain or physically punish anyone, or use language that frightens or humiliates them.
• Behave sexually towards, or begin any sexual or romantic relationship with, a child or a person we serve.
• Give a child money, a gift, a phone, a phone number or a private message, or ask them for theirs, or arrange to meet them outside our activity.
• Add a child to a personal messaging group, follow them on a personal account, or contact their family for anything other than our work.
• Photograph or film a person on your own device for your own use, or post an image from a distribution to a personal account.
• Take a child anywhere, including home, to hospital or to another site, without the knowledge and agreement of the person responsible for them and of the person leading the distribution.
• Do anything that looks like favouritism towards one child, or offer help on any condition.
• Attend a distribution having drunk alcohol or taken anything that affects your judgement.
• Handle a concern quietly on your own, promise a person you will keep a safety matter secret, or ask anyone to withdraw a concern.

Breaking these expectations is a disciplinary matter. Where it may also be a criminal offence, it is reported to the police as well.

Taking on volunteers and staff

We check people before they stand next to a child, and we do it in the same order every time. Where a check cannot be completed, the person does not take a role that involves unsupervised contact.

1. A written enquiry, so there is a record of who asked and what they were told. The volunteer page explains what we do with the details you send.
2. A conversation about the role, what it involves and what this policy requires. Nobody is placed without having had it.
3. Proof of identity and current address, seen by us and recorded as seen, without keeping copies of documents we do not need.
4. Two contactable references, and we contact them. For anyone who will work with children we ask a reference directly whether they have any concern about that person working with children.
5. A signed acknowledgement of this policy and of the conduct expectations above.
6. A supervised start: the first distributions are worked alongside an experienced person, with no unsupervised contact with a child.
7. A criminal record check where the role, or the law that applies to it, calls for one, and a police verification where an authority we work with requires it before entry.

A person who declines to be checked, gives an account we cannot reconcile, or is the subject of an unresolved safeguarding concern elsewhere is not placed in a role with contact with children or adults at risk. We also do not accept a self-arranged photographer or film crew at a distribution without the same undertakings.

Group and corporate volunteers are briefed on this policy before the activity starts, remain supervised throughout, and are not given unsupervised contact with a child on a single-day visit.

Photographs and film

This site publishes photographs from our own distributions, because a donor is entitled to see what their money did. That is a reason to be careful, not a reason to be casual. A person who is hungry is not in a strong position to refuse a camera, so the burden of getting this right sits entirely with us.

• We explain, before anything is taken, who we are, what the image is for, where it may appear, and that saying no changes nothing about the food they receive.
• We ask the person, in a language they use, and we ask the parent or the person responsible as well when the subject is a child. Silence is not agreement.
• We record that consent, what it covers and when it was given, and we keep the record with the image rather than in someone’s memory.
• We stop immediately if a person changes their mind, whether that is during the distribution or a year later.
• We do not photograph a person eating, receiving food into their hands, crying, undressed, injured, unwell, or in any state they would not want a stranger to see.
• We do not stage a photograph, ask a person to look sad or hold an empty plate, or arrange people for a better picture.
• A name, a school, a shelter, a street or anything else that lets a stranger find a child never goes out with an image, and an image of a child never carries identifying detail beside it.
• An image of a person whose safety could be affected by being seen is held back, including a person who has left a violent home, a person in a shelter, and a person whose immigration or family situation is unsettled.
• Every image of an identifiable person passes a recorded review of dignity, accuracy and risk before it is published, and an image that fails any of the three is not published.
• We do not use an image to imply something the person did not say or a situation that did not happen, and a caption never describes a person as pitiable.
• Photography at a distribution is done by the people we have asked to do it, on our equipment, and images are handed over rather than kept.

If you are in a photograph on this site, or you are responsible for someone who is, and you want it taken down, write to annmayafoundation@gmail.com with "Photograph" in the subject line. We take it down and we do not ask you to justify the request.

Information about the people we serve

Beneficiary information is held for the work and for nothing else. Our privacy policy governs it, and these limits apply on top:

• We record the least we need to serve someone and to answer for having served them, and we do not collect a document number, a health detail or a family circumstance we have no use for.
• Records that identify a child or an adult at risk are stored where only the people who need them can reach them, and access is logged.
• We never publish, sell, trade or hand over a beneficiary list, and we never share one with a donor, a company partner or a photographer.
• A safeguarding record is kept separately from ordinary records, and separately from staff and volunteer files, with access limited to the people handling the matter.
• We do not discuss an identifiable person in a group chat, on social media or with anyone who does not need to know.
• We share information outside Annmaya where a child or an adult is at risk of harm and the law or the authority handling it requires it, and we record what we shared and why.
• We keep a safeguarding record for as long as the matter and the law require, and no longer.

Raising a concern

Anyone can raise a concern: a volunteer, a member of staff, a child, a parent, a bystander, a donor or a partner. You do not need proof, you do not need to be sure, and you do not need to know which category it falls into. Write to annmayafoundation@gmail.com with "Safeguarding concern" in the subject line, or call or message +918004783575 and say that it is a safeguarding matter. It reaches the person who holds safeguarding responsibility at Annmaya Foundation. Our registered address is Kerakatpur, Lohta, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh 221107, India.

Tell us what you can. Any of this helps, and none of it is required:

• What you saw, heard or were told, in your own words, and when.
• Who was involved, or how you would recognise them.
• Where it happened, and whether it is still happening.
• Whether anyone is hurt or frightened right now.
• Whether the person affected knows you are telling us.
• How we can reach you, if you want us to.

You may raise a concern anonymously, and we will still look into it. We can act on less when you tell us more, but an anonymous report is better than a silent one. If you would rather not write, say so on the phone and we will take it down for you.

Do not investigate it yourself. Do not question a child in detail, do not confront the person you are worried about, and do not warn them. Write down what you noticed while it is fresh, and send it to us.

If someone is in danger right now

Do not wait for us. Call the police on 112, the national emergency number in India, or take the person to the nearest hospital. A child can be reached the same way through 1098, the national child helpline. Tell us as soon as you safely can, so that we can support the person and meet our own obligations. Where an incident involves a sexual offence against a child, reporting it to the police is a legal duty under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, and we report it.

How a concern is handled

1. We acknowledge that we have received it within one working day, to whoever sent it, unless it came anonymously with no way to reply.
2. We make the person safe first. That can mean stopping an activity, moving someone away from contact, standing a volunteer down while the matter is looked into, or arranging medical help.
3. We record it: what was reported, by whom, when, and what we did in the first hours. The record is factual and separates what we were told from what we concluded.
4. We decide within three working days whether it must go to the police or to a child protection authority. Where it must, it goes, and we do not delay that decision to finish our own enquiries first.
5. We look into what we are responsible for, led by someone who was not involved in what happened. Where the concern touches a person who would normally handle it, someone else handles it.
6. We speak to the person affected, and to the person responsible for a child, about what is happening, at a pace and in a language that works for them, and we do not press a child to repeat an account they have already given to an authority.
7. We give the person who raised it an outcome in plain terms: what we found, what we changed, and what we could not answer. Where the law limits what we can say, we say that rather than saying nothing.
8. We act on the outcome. That includes ending a role, ending a partnership, changing how a distribution runs, or changing this policy.
9. We close the matter in writing, and we read the record again after the change we made has had time to work.

A person against whom a concern is made is told what is alleged, as soon as telling them does not put anyone at risk or interfere with a police enquiry, and is given a chance to respond. Standing someone down while a matter is being looked into is a precaution, not a finding against them.

What we record

• Every concern raised, including the ones we conclude were unfounded, so that a pattern across separate small reports is visible.
• The date and time of the report, who took it, and what was done in response, in order.
• Every referral to the police or an authority, and what came back.
• Every decision to stand a person down, end a role or change a practice, with the reason.
• Consent records and dignity reviews for published images, kept with the image.
• The checks completed for each volunteer and staff member, and the date they were completed.

Nobody is punished for speaking up

A person who raises a safeguarding concern honestly is protected, whatever the outcome and whether or not they turn out to have been right. They will not lose a role, a shift, a reference or a place at a distribution for having spoken; they will not be excluded, criticised or discussed for it; and their identity is shared only with the people who need it to handle the matter. Any attempt to pressure, threaten, isolate or take revenge on someone for raising a concern, or on the person the concern was about, is itself a serious breach of this policy and is dealt with as one. The same protection covers a person who co-operates with an enquiry or gives information to an authority. Knowingly making a false report to cause harm is a separate matter, and we distinguish the two carefully rather than using the possibility of one to discourage the other.

If the concern is about someone in charge

Write to the same address with "Safeguarding escalation" in the subject line, and say that the concern involves a person who would ordinarily handle it. It is then handled by someone with no involvement in the matter and no reporting relationship to the person concerned, and where nobody inside Annmaya Foundation can properly do that, we take it to the police or to the relevant authority instead. If you are not satisfied with how we have handled a concern, you can say so to us and ask for it to be looked at again, and you can take it to the police or to a child protection authority at any point, with or without telling us.

Confidentiality, and its limits

We treat a safeguarding concern as confidential and share it only with the people who need it: those handling the matter, and the authorities where the law or the risk requires. We cannot promise secrecy, and we will not pretend otherwise to a child or to anyone else. If what you tell us means a person is at risk of serious harm, we will act on it, and we will tell you that we are going to.

Preparation and supervision

• Every volunteer and staff member is taken through this policy before their first distribution, and is told in that briefing exactly how to raise a concern.
• Everyone in a role involving contact with children or adults at risk is taken through it again at least once a year, and whenever it changes.
• Every distribution has a named person leading it who is responsible for how it runs and to whom a concern can be raised on the spot.
• A person new to a role works alongside an experienced person until whoever is leading is satisfied they are ready.
• Anyone who has dealt with a distressing incident is offered support afterwards, and is not expected to carry it alone.

Reviewing this policy

We read this policy again at least once every twelve months. We also read it again straight after any safeguarding concern is closed, after any change in how or where we work, after taking on a new partner organisation, and when the law changes. Where a review changes what we do, we change the words here to match rather than leaving the document behind the practice, and the effective date above tells you which version you are reading. A summary of how Annmaya is run sits on the transparency page.

The law we work under

Annmaya operates in India. This policy is written to sit alongside the law that applies to us, including the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, the provisions of the Indian criminal law dealing with offences against children and against women, and the law on personal information described in our privacy policy. Where this policy and the law differ, the law governs, and nothing here reduces a duty we owe under it or a right the people we serve have under it. Nothing in this document is legal advice.

How to reach us

Write to Annmaya Foundation at annmayafoundation@gmail.com, or call or message +918004783575. Our registered address is Kerakatpur, Lohta, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh 221107, India. We aim to reply within three working days.