Sonali Patankar

Founder

Ahaan Foundation

Mrs. Sonali Patankar is a professional social worker with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Nirmala Niketan – College of Social work. She also holds a diploma in school counseling from SNDT ‐ Churchgate. She has to her credit more than 22 years of professional experience and has worked with eminent organizations such as CRY- Child Rights and You, Public Concern for Governance and Trust – a Police Reform organization, IL&FS Education. Salaam Bombay Foundation and with Mumbai and Thane Police.

Currently, Sonali is the founder president of Ahaan Foundation a trust registered in April 2012. She has conceptualized and initiated the first movement of its kind called ‐ Responsible Netism. The Movement Responsible Netism is the only non- profit initiative in the state advocating for Child Online Protection and cyber wellness since 2012. The programme Being Responsible Netizens educates children and adults about constructive and creative use of technology to promote responsible online behavior. Dealing with gadget, gaming, pornography dependency in very young children is a cause of great concern leading to an epidemic of sleep deprivation and social isolation. Empowering adults as digital guardians and equipping children and adults to strike the right balance in cyber space to ensure psychological well-being is a challenge the initiative aspires to fulfill.

The team has successfully sensitized over 8.5 lakh students and adults in over 800 educational institutions since inception and has also hosted 2 National Cyber Psychology Conferences in 2017 and 2018, the topic of Cyber Psychology has been introduced in India by us for the first time. This conference aims at formulating polices on Cyber Hygiene and implementing a Culture of Cyber Hygiene within school eco systems across the state.

We strongly believe Child online protection and safety is every child’s right and every adults
responsibility, we aspire to collectively build a cyber safe world for our children and ourselves.