Child Protection & Safeguarding

Our promise

GiveWise Educational Foundation exists for children who have the talent and the hunger to learn, but not the means to pay for good teaching. Most of our students are minors, and their safety comes before everything else we do — before schedules, before targets, before convenience.

We have zero tolerance for abuse, harassment, discrimination or exploitation of a child, in any form — physical, emotional, verbal or online. Every concern raised with us is taken seriously and reviewed promptly. Our work is guided by the laws of India made for the protection of children, including the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.

Who this policy covers

This policy covers every child who learns with GiveWise, in every setting in which our work takes place: our live online classes and doubt sessions, our official communication channels, any mentoring or counselling support we provide, and any in-person activity, event or school programme connected with GiveWise. It binds everyone who works with us in any capacity — staff, teachers, doubt-solvers, coordinators, mentors, counsellors, volunteers and associates — and it governs how we respond to concerns about any adult, in or outside our team, whose conduct may affect a child in our care.

What we protect children from

When we speak of harm to a child, we mean any of the following, whether it happens in person or online:

• Physical abuse — any act that causes, or risks causing, physical injury or pain to a child.
• Emotional or verbal abuse — humiliation, threats, persistent criticism, shouting, or any conduct that frightens, shames or demeans a child.
• Sexual abuse and exploitation — any sexual act, advance, remark, image or communication directed at a child, of the kind the POCSO Act, 2012 exists to prevent and punish.
• Neglect — a failure, by a person responsible for a child in our setting, to take the basic care that the child’s safety and well-being require.
• Exploitation — using a child, a child’s image, or a child’s information for any purpose outside the child’s own learning and welfare.
• Online harm — unsafe contact, inappropriate content, or misuse of a child’s personal information through digital channels.

This list describes the harms we guard against; it is not a limit on our concern. Any conduct that makes a child unsafe or uncomfortable is within this policy, whether or not it is named above.

Safe classes, every day

Our classes are live and online, and they are always supervised and structured:

• Classes are held on secure platforms, in scheduled sessions led by our teachers and coordinators — never in informal, unsupervised spaces.
• Every session follows a fixed, predictable format, so children always know what to expect and who is present.
• Sessions may be observed for quality and safety, and recordings, where made, are kept under strict control and used only for learning — for continuity and revision by our own students.
• There is no ranking, no public comparison and no shaming in our classrooms. Children attend by choice, and learn without fear.

The conduct we require of our people

Everyone who works with our students — teachers, doubt-solvers, coordinators, mentors and volunteers — is bound by a strict code of conduct:

• All interaction with a student is for teaching or for the student’s well-being support — nothing else.
• No member of our team may hold private, unsupervised one-to-one contact with a student outside the GiveWise platform and its authorised channels. Doubts are solved in our scheduled doubt sessions, in the open.
• Communication is professional at all times. Favouritism, personal demands and any conduct that could make a child uncomfortable are strictly prohibited.
• Our people are oriented and assessed on our safeguarding standards before they work with children, and are expected to report any safety concern immediately — any member of the team may raise a concern directly, and no one is ever penalised for raising one in good faith.

Your child’s information

Protecting a child includes protecting what we know about them:

• We collect only the minimum information needed to teach and support a student.
• Student information is stored securely and is accessible only to authorised members of our team, for the work they are responsible for.
• We never sell student information, and we never share it with third parties for commercial use.
• A student’s image or work is never published by us in a way that identifies the child without care for their safety and privacy.

Support beyond studies

Alongside teaching, our students can receive guidance and counselling support — help with study stress, confidence and direction. This support is deliberately non-clinical: it is mentoring and guidance, not therapy, and it is not a replacement for professional mental-health services. What a student shares in confidence stays confidential, and is shared further only where the student’s safety or the law requires it.

Parents are partners

A child’s safety is a shared responsibility, and parents and guardians are our partners in it. We welcome parents staying close to their child’s learning — knowing the class schedule, knowing who teaches their child, and raising anything with us at any time, however small it may seem.

Raising a concern

If anything about a child’s safety or well-being concerns you — as a student, a parent, a teacher or a member of the public — please write to us through our Contact page. You do not need proof, and you may raise a concern anonymously if you prefer; anonymous concerns are reviewed with the same seriousness as named ones. Concerns are handled confidentially, and no student, parent or member of our team will ever face retaliation for raising a genuine concern.

At GiveWise, raising a concern is a right — not a risk. Every voice is heard, respected, and protected.

What happens when a concern is raised

A concern about a child’s safety is never left unattended. When one reaches us, this is what follows:

• The concern is recorded and passed the same day to the member of our leadership responsible for safeguarding, who reviews it promptly and decides what immediate steps the child’s safety requires.
• The child’s safety comes first — before any question of reputation, convenience or internal process. Where a child may be at immediate risk, protective steps are taken at once.
• Concerns are examined fairly and in confidence: only the people who need to know are told, and the child and family are treated with dignity throughout.
• Where the law requires it, we report. The POCSO Act places a duty to report a suspected offence against a child to the police or the Special Juvenile Police Unit, and we honour that duty without exception — a matter does not stay “internal” when the law says otherwise. Serious matters are escalated to the Foundation’s leadership immediately.
• Where a concern is upheld against a member of our team, action follows under our disciplinary standards — up to removal from the organisation — and where a concern is not upheld, the person who raised it in good faith suffers no consequence of any kind.

Review of this policy

This policy is reviewed periodically, and whenever the law or our own practice changes, so that what is written here always matches what we actually do. The version on this page is the current one.

GiveWise Educational Foundation is a registered Section 8 non-profit company (CIN U85500PB2025NPL066320), registered on the NGO Darpan portal (PB/2026/0993111), holding provisional 12A and 80G registration. Registered Office: H. No. 13, Ward No. 54, Sandhu Colony, Amritsar, Punjab 143001. Questions about this policy? Please write to us through our Contact page.