Project LION
Every child deserves to grow and thrive in a nurturing place they can call home. Project LION aims to create sustainable, system-wide change to ensure that children in India who are living without parental care are supported and protected.
Improving the lives of orphaned and displaced children in India
India has more children than any other country in the world, where millions of children grow up separated from parental care — by poverty, illness, disability, displacement or crisis. For decades, the default response was to place children in childcare institutions (CCIs), which often leads to low standards of care and poor developmental outcomes for children. These institutions are often privately run and poorly regulated, leaving children extremely vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and neglect.
The saga of how 5-year-old Saroo Brierley survived life on the streets after being separated from his brother and his eventual adoption by an Australian couple inspired the 2016 movie "Lion." It also called attention to the plight of India’s “forgotten” children — those forced to survive without parents or family. Inspired by the film and UNICEF's work in India, UNICEF USA New York Board Member Purvi Padia and her husband, Harsh Padia, teamed up with UNICEF USA to launch Project LION in 2018 and the results are extraordinary.
Project LION: Supporting Millions of Children Across India
Project LION works across government, civil society and community stakeholders to prevent family separation and improve the standards of care for vulnerable children. In its first eight years, Project LION has made incredible progress in mainstreaming family-based alternative care, while building the policy frameworks, trained workforce, and public systems needed for that shift to endure.
Since its launch in 2018, Project LION has helped catalyze one of the most significant shifts toward family-based care in the world. Thanks to the support of anchor donors to LION, UNICEF has been a meaningful part of transforming how India cares for children without parental support and accelerating a nationwide move away from the institutionalization of children.
In this next phase of Project LION, the program is reaching half of all states in India, home to about 75 percent of the population of children ages 18 years old and younger in the country. The program is responding to the protection needs of an estimated 500,000 children through:
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Improving standards of care: UNICEF is helping build stronger case management systems, care worker trainings and alternatives to juvenile detention to ensure children receive proper care.
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Scaling alternative care: UNICEF is developing more intentional family and kin-based after-care models for children who leave institutions.
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Strengthening families and communities: UNICEF is preventing the institutionalization of children and encouraging families to be the primary caregivers through support services such as cash transfer and COVID-19 relief programs.
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Providing mental health & psychosocial support: UNICEF is providing mental health services to children without parental care, as well as trainings for child protection workers to better care for and refer proper treatment to children.
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Improving child protection systems: UNICEF is working with a diversity of stakeholders including emergency call responders, police and local leaders to improve child protection systems and implement greater accountability and standards amongst care givers in institutions.
With COVID-19 severly impacting families in India and increasing the challenges that children face, Project LION is critical in promoting family-first care and guidance on how to prevent further spread of the virus. In addition to helping ensure that children have a safe place to live, the program also helps provide some much-needed sense of normalcy. For thousands of children in India who have been left without family care, Project LION is supporting their growth in loving, stable, nurturing and protective environments.
Protect children in India today. Your donation can make a difference.
Top photo credit: UNICEF/UN0382148/Singh
