No Photography board
09 March 2020

An event for the kids of Free Birds Open Shelter Home.
Sponsor : Anup M Abaraham (Dubai, UAE)

Taking the photos & videos of children at shelter homes, who are in need of care & protection, is actually against the norms. Years back, Arm of Joy also had published such photos, as the Juvenile Justice Act stated that the photos which are in the best interest of a child can be published, with the permission of authorities. Hence with the consent of the authorities of the institutions visited by us, we used to publish the photos of our events in our website. We were doing it because the photos taken by us were only in the best interest of the children, in which they smile & enjoy in our events and surely not affecting their self esteem. But later in 2016, the Child Rights Commission directed us not to publish such photos even if it is in the best interest of children and we have been adhering to that order for the last three & half years. At the same time, the documentation of our activities in the form of reports & photos is also important to us, for some formalities like submitting activity reports to Income Tax department and also to maintain the transparency regarding our activities with our supporters. So we adopted a policy that whenever we publish photos of our activities, we will make sure that the identity of the kids is not revealed, by keeping their face out of the frame or making it blurred.

Now as per the request of the authorities of Free Birds Open Shelter Home, we have designed and fixed ‘No Photography’ notice boards in both their homes. As visitors & sponsors tend to take selfies & photos with children and publish in social media, the authorities there were finding it difficult to communicate the matter to them in a subtle way. The cost for printing the vinyl sticker & acrylic board has been met with the amount shared by Tarun & Pranav from Dubai.