Need for sexuality and personal safety education
Indian society largely also refuses to view people with disabilities as sexual beings – as having sexual needs, requiring sexual and reproductive health services, which hugely impacts their mental and physical well-being. Children with disabilities are systematically denied basic information about sexual health and relationships, to either shield them from the realities of life or because they are considered asexual. Without such fundamental lessons, children with disabilities have no language to describe what has happened to them when they are abused. When it comes to children with intellectual disabilities (ID) the matter becomes even more complex. Often adults consider children with intellectual disabilities to be innocent, infantile, asexual and incapable of decision making. They are also denied the right to privacy, right to set boundaries from touches and any information around sexuality and safety.
Though Sexuality and personal safety education is one of the important needs of persons with disabilities, currently India does not have this education integrated into its school or college education programs. No culturally appropriate, value based, comprehensive sexuality and personal safety programs existed for children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities. Culturally appropriate, easy to use, scientifically developed tools to impart the same also did not exist. Since children with IDs and Autism do not learn in through the conventional teaching methods and require customised and specialised tangible teaching aids which can be interactive, robust, durable and suitable for repeated use, there was an intense need to develop such resources and build the capacity of the trainers to use the them through comprehensive trainings.
Suvidha Kits
The Suvidha Suraksha Kit was indigenously developed by Enfold. It is an age and culture appropriate teaching-learning resource on basics of sexual and reproductive health and personal safety for children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities and ASD. The Kit has activities and material that addresses visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic style of learning thereby validating the modes of learning.
The contents of the Suvidha kits are based on the basic principles of life skills based personal safety and sexuality education curriculum that Enfold has developed and followed in mainstream schools for over 2 decades.
Building on the pedagogical framework and field learning from the Suvidha Suraksha Kit, Enfold adopted a co-design approach to develop two specialised resources, the Suvidha Sparsh Kit for children with Visually impairment and the Suvidha Sparsh Kit for children with Hearing impairment.
The kits include preparatory reading material, the Suvidha Manual, for the trainers and caregivers of these children, to help them understand various concepts around sexuality including the development of sexuality in children, basic information on reproductive health, awareness of child sexual abuse and how to prepare the child to recognize, resist and report perpetrators of sexual abuse, POCSO Act 2012 and their socio-legal responsibilities amongst others.
Suvidha Suraksha Kit:
The Suvidha Suraksha Kit addresses the learning needs and styles of children with intellectual disability and Autism. It has supportive teaching learning materials like games/ puppets/ puzzles/ charts/ flash cards, and pictorial social scripts, which can be used by the caregivers and teachers to support children with disabilities to learn the required concepts. The Suvidha Manual also explains how these activities can be conducted through activity guides. The visual kit is customized and separate for young and adolescent girls and for boys.
The Suvidha Suraksha Kit is available in English, Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Marathi.
Suvidha Drishya Kit:
The Suvidha Drishya kit addresses the needs of children with Hearing Impairment. The Indian Sign Language (ISL) videos of the pictorial Social Scripts along with games/ puppets/ puzzles/ charts/ flash cards provide the required multi sensorial teaching-learning resource.
The Kit is available in English and Kannada
Suvidha Sparsh Kit:
In the Suvidha Sparsh kit the pictorial social scripts have been redesigned with braille text and videos with ISL interpretation. It has a booklet with the raised lined diagrams and a description of the male and female reproductive and sexual organs to ensure the concepts could be experienced through touch and sound thereby meeting the needs of children with visual impairments.
ENFOLD OFFERS FOUR BROAD CATEGORIES OF TRAINING FOR THE TRAINERS
1. Demystifying Sexuality in the Context of Disabilities (30 hour online/in-person/hybrid course):
Discussing gender equity, development of sexuality, understanding child sexual abuse and its dynamics, sexuality and personal safety education for children with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disabilities and related conditions.
Intensive training for parents, caregivers and professionals working with children with intellectual and developmental disabilities and sensory impairments. This will include a five-hour training for using the Suvidha Kit.
2. Sexuality and Personal safety in the Context of Disabilities (20 hour online/in-person training):
Discussing gender equity, sexuality and personal safety education and why and how to use the Suvidha Suraksha kit with children with disabilities.
Training for caregivers, teachers and professionals in sexuality, child sexual abuse, personal safety rules and boundaries, development of sexuality in children with disabilities, adolescent sexuality, understanding and regulating feelings and emotions, health and hygiene, POCSO and using the Suvidha Kit activities with their children with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disabilities and related conditions.
3. Awareness and Sensitisation Sessions (2 to 3 hours online/in-person):
For caregivers, teachers, trainers and other professionals working with children with disabilities, on the basics of personal safety and sexuality education for children with disabilities with focus on intellectual disabilities, autism spectrum disorder and auditory and visual impairments.
4. Suvidha Kit Training (5 hour online training):
For caregivers, teachers, trainers and other professionals working with children with disabilities.
Training focuses on practical inputs on strategies and methods to teach life skills, personal safety and sexuality and how to use the Suvidha Kit with children with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability and related conditions.
Resources for Children and Adolescents with Disabilities
PPTs on Demystifying Sexuality
- About Enfold
- Diversity in Sex; Structure and Function of Reproductive System English / Hindi
- Diversity in Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation English / Hindi
- Sexuality Development in Children and Adolescents English / Hindi
- Gender Bias English / Hindi
- Self Esteem and Body Image English / Hindi
- Attitudes towards Sexuality English / Hindi
- Disability and Sexuality English / Hindi
- POCSO and other laws related to CSA English / Hindi
- Sexual Violence against Children English / Hindi
Testimonials
Invitation for collaborative partnership with Enfold
We invite organisations working with children with disabilities to partner with us under a couple of partly sponsored projects. Under these, we are providing a Suvidha Kit that will meet the needs of the organisation ( Suraksha kit , Sparsh Kit , Drishya Kit) , a 5 hours training to two teachers and a two hour awareness and sensitisation session for parents of each organisation. The topics covered under the training sessions will be basics of personal safety and sexuality education, strategies to teach and using the suvidha kit with children with intellectual disabilities, autism spectrum disorder and related conditions.
Between December 2022 to May 2026, under similar partly funded projects we have:
– partnered with 52 organisations
– trained over 12,024 teachers, parents and professionals
– provided 226 Suvidha Kits as on May 2026




