A workshop on ‘Creating a Children Friendly and Protective Environment for Children in Contact with Railways’ was organized by Railway Protection Force (RPF) of South Central Railway in coordination with UNICEF, Child Protection Resource Centre (CPRC) - Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) and Terre das Hommes, Netherlands, today i.e., 29th December, 2020. The main objective of the workshopis to build the capacity of the RPF&GRP personnel on the procedure to be followed to provide care and protection to the children found at railway stations as per the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015. 42members have participated in the workshop that includes officials from RPF and GRP, Kacheguda Railway Child line and DCPU-Hyderabad. Shri Ramesh Chandra, DIG, RPF, South Central Railway was the chief guest
Speaking on the need to prioritize the protection of children in railway premises,
Shri Ramesh Chandra, DIG, RPF, South Central Railway said that Indian Railways is one of the largest railway network in the world and in every five minutes a child arrives alone at some major railway station in India as per the data. Children are often found travelling alone in the trains, or engaged in vending, begging, rag picking or living at the station premises and also traffickers use means of railways for trafficking of children. He requested the participants to follow proper procedure to provide care and protection of children found at railway station or at trains.
At the inaugural gathering, Dr.Murali Krishna, Child Protection Officer-UNICEF requested the police officers not to take the child protection work as an additional responsibility rather treat their responsibility as their regular duty in protecting children in contact with railways. As a change maker, the first fundamental shift from the traditional job mind-set is willingness to protect the children in distress and motivating their colleagues on the same.
Sri SankarKutty, Sr. DSC, RPF, Hyderabad Division, Dr. Murali Krishna, Child Protection Officer-UNICEF and Sri Subrat Panda, Programme Officer, Terre das Hommes, Netherlands were the guests of honour in the programme along with the representatives from CPRC-CESS and Railway Child line. 
