How Protsahan India Foundation is changing the lives of girls from West Delhi's slums through education and healthcare

TW: The story mentions cases of sexual abuse

It’s a cold wintry January day as an autorickshaw takes me from Delhi’s Uttam Nagar West Metro station past muddy roads into the narrow bylanes of West Delhi’s slums, home to migrant communities mostly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

He drops us a few metres outside non-profit Protsahan India Foundation’s Girl Empowerment Centre 3 (GEC 03) in the heart of these slums. 

While the small heater’s buzz fills the room with warmth, it is the conversation with Protsahan founder Sonal Kapoor, Payal Rani, the centre coordinator, compliance officer Mallika Sinha, and Youth Peer Leaders Mala Kumari and Anupam that truly stirs something deep within me. 

Girl Empowerment Center 03 is one of the five trauma-informed centres Protsahan runs in Vikas Nagar, Uttam Nagar, Hastsal, Deepak Vihar, JJ Colony Dwarka in West Delhi.  

GECs work on an on-ground depth of scale holistic model that serves over 81,000 vulnerable girls across 107 slums. Started 14 years ago, the Foundation has enabled girls to find pathways out of intergenerational poverty, violence, child marriage, labour, trafficking, and abuse.

The encounter that changed everything

Fifteen years ago, when Kapoor visited the area to shoot a film, she met a young mother who was 37 or 38 years old.

“This woman was pregnant with her seventh child and had six daughters, one of whom she was sending into sex work to provide food for the rest. When I inquired about her unborn child, the woman’s response was chilling: if the baby was a boy, she would educate him and help him build a future; if it was a girl, she would strangle her at birth,” she recalls.

This child who was being sent for sex work was wobbling and limping and the mother was asked whether she was hurt while playing. She said, “Don’t worry, Madam, we don’t send her without condoms. It must have hurt a little more this time.”

"That moment shook me to the core. I knew I couldn't just walk away and pretend I hadn’t heard those words," Kapoor says.

Determined to make a difference, she acted swiftly. Within two weeks of that encounter, she initiated a grassroots movement to help vulnerable girls escape cycles of abuse and exploitation. It started as a one-room creative arts and design school in that slum to rescue one child at first, and then more like her from a system where poverty and abuse was rampant.

"There was no Plan B. I just knew this had to be done. So, I did it," she says.

For the next 10 years, she juggled three part-time jobs to sustain Protsahan, learning about child rights, legal frameworks, and psychosocial interventions along the way. She realised that merely pulling children out of vulnerable situations was not enough—they needed holistic rehabilitation and a structured path to empowerment.

“Our model of change is rooted in the “HEART” approach–Health, Education, Art, Rights, and Technology. The organisation doesn’t work with children already in government schools but focuses on those who have never been to school—those who have fallen off the margins of society. A key part of Protsahan’s work involves understanding the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on vulnerable children. Research shows that trauma deeply affects a child's brain development, inhibiting their ability to learn and thrive,” Kapoor explains.

"A child’s brain first asks: ‘Am I safe?’ Only then can they ask, ‘Am I loved?’ And only after that comes, ‘What can I learn?’ If safety and love are missing, learning is impossible," she adds.

How “HEART” is implemented at the GECs

Payal informs me that over 100 girls have enrolled at GEC 03. Around 2pm, a large group of girls are ready for the day’s sessions. Kapoor leads the meditation session for the day, and ends it with several positive messages and hugs all around. The girls greet me with warmth and confidently introduce themselves. Soon, they are all seated for science and math sessions by a teacher employed by the centre to augment the girls’ learning in school.

It is evident Payal is the matriarch of GEC 03, hovering over these girls, nurturing them and protecting them like her own. Kapoor says that Payal’s association with the centre began with her will to learn and “do something with her life”.

“In 2015, I walked into a centre, met Sonal ma’am and told her I want to learn computers. Later, she encouraged me to take up the storytelling sessions. In 2018, I joined Protsahan full-time and became a co-ordinator for the GEC 02. When this centre was opened in 2021, I moved here,” she says.

Payal has become a community leader of sorts. She has a direct connection with parents that helped enrollment at the centre. It doesn’t just stop at that—some of the girls had never gone to school. So the foundation approached local government schools for admission and ensured government linkages with documents like Aadhar cards, and others for the entire family.

“She still goes to the police to help file complaints of abuse. She commands a lot of respect; people listen to her,” says Kapoor.

Kapoor and Payal outline what HEART means to adolescent girls. The “H” stands for “healthy adolescence, holistic development”, where the GECs offer holistic-physical, mental and emotional well-being of adolescent girls by being a trauma-informed space, offering first-aid psycho-social counselling.

This includes the provision of physical well-being support and menstrual hygiene management education. I witnessed Youth Peer Leader Mala Kumari conducting the SRHR (- Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights) session with girl champions using the Period Board Game developed by Protsahan in collaboration with IIT Delhi. 

The E stands for consistent and structured academic support that includes career guidance, counseling and mentorship. The foundation also gives need-based equity scholarships to girls to pursue long-term education. 

According to Protsahan’s annual report for 2022-2023, 89% of migrant girls under Protsahan’s interventions reported abuse before they turned 12. The foundation initiated art therapy to help 1,350 young girls in Delhi and Jharkhand in trauma healing. 

R stands for Rights, Inclusion, & Entitlements: Linking the Unlinked. Protsahan connects adolescent girls and their families to Slum Panchayats and anganwadi sessions, and facilitates access to benefits and budgets available to young girls and women by the Government of India. Last, but not the least, T stands for technology, where girls have access to digital devices, audio-visual based content and sessions on STEM and skill development.

“Each centre also hands out a 2 kg protein kit that includes rajma, arhar dal, masoor dal and whole moong. From ration shops, families only get wheat and rice. Young girls need all the nutrition they can get. But we have also made it important that only with regular attendance, can the girls avail of these kits,” says Payal.

Girl champions dream of better futures

Kapoor is emphatic that the girls are not  termed as beneficiaries, even by the funders supporting them. “They are our girl champions,” she says with pride.

Payal takes us on a short walk to meet the families of two girls, Vrinda* and Simran*, to understand how the girls have benefited after attending the centre regularly.

Vrinda’s mother, Sonal* narrates her daily struggle of making ends meet. Her husband, who rode an autorickshaw earlier, works as a daily wage labourer in construction. There is no guaranteed work everyday. They have no ration card and therefore, cannot receive the wheat and rice sanctioned by the government.

She tells us she is happy that Vrinda is making good progress at the centre and is bright in studies, and has also received a scholarship and other benefits. But she also wonders how long it will last. When Sonal mentions “dowry” and getting her married because she is sure they cannot support a higher education for her, Payal intervenes and advises her in a firm but soft tone. “Do you want her to get married and face domestic violence?  We will support her in whatever way we can.”

The family insists we have chai that Vrinda makes with a lot of milk–and when we leave, our hearts are heavy, knowing fully well we have used up their quota of milk for the day. Kapoor reassures me, “Don’t worry, we will add an extra protein kit.”

Meanwhile, Simran* stays in a slum dominated by the waste picker community. Her mother, Gauri*, a migrant from Bihar who got married at the age of 10, has been a victim of domestic violence. She says her husband doesn’t beat her anymore, but comes home drunk most of the time and works only erratically. Gauri works as a domestic help and also makes garbage bags from plastic waste. With four children and her husband living in a small room held by a makeship polythene roof, it is difficult to manage but she is happy her daughters attend the centre.

She is happy her children are regulars at the centre, receive protein kits and other supplies, and reassures us that she won’t get them married at an early age. Kapoor gently advises her on the importance of education and standing on their own feet. Gauri agrees without any hesitation or reluctance.

Sustaining a movement

Raising funding has not been easy, admits Kapoor. She details various instances where they paid for the delivery of used tablets and they didn’t work after six months. Another proposed donor wanted to attach a tracking device in every tablet to ensure that the girls didn’t use them for anything other than academics. Yet, another wanted the “before and after data” of an abuse victim in six months.

Despite the challenges, Protsahan has diversity in its funding sources, with 40% of funds donated by individuals, 41% of funds coming from corporate CSR, and 19% of funds coming from institutions. 

The organisation has also begun working with anganwadis, UNICEF, and government welfare institutions to scale systemic change and strengthen the child protection ecosystem in India. Through research, they have studied ten years of POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) data, using these insights to train government stakeholders, judges, and policymakers.

Protsahan has trained over 40,000 people in child protection laws and trauma-informed care, and their research has been used by high courts in Madhya Pradesh and Guwahati for judicial training.

Kapoor remains steadfast in her mission: investing in girls to break cycles of poverty and abuse. And, listening to their relentless efforts for girls' empowerment, I am overwhelmed—not just by the scale of their work, but by the sheer determination and compassion driving it. In their world, humanity knows no barriers, and the impossible is merely a challenge waiting to be conquered.

(*Some names have been changed to protect their identities.)