BUILDING CAPACITY OF TRANSGENDER/HIJRA COMMUNITY BASED ORGANISATION UNDER INDIA

1. BUILDING CAPACITY OF TRANSGENDER/HIJRA COMMUNITY BASED ORGANISATION UNDER INDIA NETWORK FOR SEXUAL MINORITIES (INFOSEM)

2. Implementing organisation/network: India Network For Sexual Minorities (INFOSEM) Technical support - RFSU, Sweden; Humsafar Trust, Mumbai, India; Solidarity and Action Against The HIV Infection in India (SAATHII), Kolkata, India Financial support: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Sweden Year - 2010

3. About INFOSEM: India Network for Sexual Minorities (INFOSEM) is a collective national effort by sexual minorities to ensure equality for themselves in all spheres of life, free from discrimination. It was formed in November 2003 by a group of community organizations of LGBT populations (lesbians, gays, bisexual women and men) that came together to work towards achieving common goals. Organizational status: INFOSEM was registered as a society on February 25, 2009. Current number of member organizations: Currently INFOSEM has 83 organisations working for LGBT populations in India and almost all of them working for transgender/Hijra populations. Linkages with SIDA/RFSU: A linkage with SIDA/RFSU was established in 2007 and became a part of South Asian LGBT Network of Health and rights.

4. Recent activities: • Representatives from INFOSEM participated in all the meetings were conducted in Sri Lanka, • Bangladesh, Nepal and India (from 2007 to 2009) with support from SIDA/RFSU. To initiate more • advocacy and capacity building related activities for sexually marginalized populations it was necessary • for INFOSEM to join such a large network. • It took time to complete the registration process of INFOSEM and finally on February 25, 2009 as a • society INFOSEM was registered and later on it was also registered as a trust. In October 2009 a general • body meeting was conducted at Mumbai and it was decided to incorporate more member organizations • under UNFOSEM umbrella. A nominal membership fees also introduced to maintain very basic • requirements of INFOSEM. • Earlier, INFOSEM ran various capacity building projects for it’s member organizations but there • were certain organizations working on male to female transgender populations which had their • specific needs towards rights, health and capacity building related issues. • Keeping this in mind it was planned to start a capacity building project for these organizations with • support from SIDA/RFSU. Earlier it was not registered; hence it was not possible for INFOSEM to • receive a grant for the same project. A project proposal titled “Building Capacity of Transgender/Hijra • Community Based Organisations under INFOSEM” was also submitted at the end of the last year to • RFSU/SIDA.

5. ABOUT THE PROJECT Title of the project: Building capacity of transgender/Hijra community based organisation under INFOSEM Project period: January - December, 2010 • Background:Government, civil society and donor responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India have • traditionally focused only on health services provision. A narrow approach as this has neglected the • Importance of issues like livelihood, education, human rights and other social security aspects in relation • to HIV/AIDS. For groups of people known to be highly vulnerable to HIV - particularly Hijras and other • male-to-female transgender (TG) people - social, economic and cultural factors like education, employment, • nutrition, stigma and discrimination have a direct bearing on their ability to adopt safer sex practices or • access health services. Santi Seva, Bhadrak, Orissa is a community based organisation of TG people, that has • been working for the same population since 2008 with support from Fellowship, Bhadrak and SAATHII with • funding support from American Jewish World Service (AJWS), New York the group is currently focusing on: • Organisational development • Emotional support and friendly guidance • Adult (non-formal) education support • Livelihood access • Access to general health and STI/HIV/AIDS services • Social security support

6. Since 2008 with support from AJWS, all these activities has been taken care of and as a result the project • has been considered as a model project for male-to-female transgender populations in Orissa. Keeping • this development in mind INFOSEM had decided to focus on the first two of the early mentioned areas • for it’s TG/Hijra CBOs by initiating following specific trainings: • Training on organisational development which would include visioning exercise and making of • organisational policy (already organised in September 2010) • 2) Training on emotional support and friendly guidance and basic counselling skills (would be organised in • November 2010) • Activity conducted so far: • Training on organisational development which would include visioning exercise and making of • organisational policy • Date: September 22-23, 2010 • Place: Kalyan, Mumbai, India • Participants: 17

7. List of organisations attended the training: • Kinnar Asmita, Mumbai • Sakha, Bhubaneswar, Orissa • Darpan Foundation, Kamatipura, Mumbai • PAYANA, Karnataka • Santi Seva, Bhadrak, Orissa • Lakshya Trust, Gujrat • Bandhan, Kolkata • Sarathi Trust, Nagpur • Kinnar Kastoori, Mumbai • Kolkata Rista, Kolkata • Koshish, Kolkata • Swayam, Chennai • Suraksha Society, Hyderabad • Plus, Kolkata • Madhya Banglar Sangram, Bahrampur • Dum Dum Swikriti Society, Kolkata • Amitie Trust, West Bengal

8. Module of the workshop on organisational development: • Day 1: • 1) Who am I? • - Who we are? • - Organisational compartmentalization • Conflict resolution • 2) Preparing a vision statement • Needs of the community • Impact on the community • Resources of The community • Capability of the organisation • Environment • Scope of the vision in terms of time • Values of the organisation • 3) Breaking a vision statement into mission statemen • - Identifying smaller goals and missions • 4) Implementation of a mission statement • Identification of indicators • Developing strategies • Evaluation of strategies on CSF (Critical Success Factors)

9. Day 2: • 5) Organisational development • Organisational structure • Admin policy-Feed From Values • HR policy –Feed from Values • Programs • Feed from Mission statements • Identifying complementary activities • Combining activities for optimal utilization of budgets • Resource Mobilization • Identification of funding agencies • Proposal Writing - Feed from Mission statements implementation • Capacity Building • Identifying training needs-Feed from sub points of Vision statement • Creating training program calendars

10. Challenges faced: • INFOSEM is a large network and operates at national level, as per the number of the • organisations this kind of initiatives could become more successful with more adequate • resources available. Hence more number of organisations could be invited. • Due to certain unavoidable reasons the project could not be initiated from the beginning • of the year, within this limited period it was not an easy work to coordinate with all interested • organisations. • All TG/Hijra organisations are not very internet savvy and organisers had to put more effort to • continue the follow up process. It is expected that trough this series of trainings they will become • more competent to coordinate with others and will also be able to build their capacity.

11. Lesson learnt and recommendations: • Since every session was exercise based the whole training process was very participative for • all the participants. • Two resource persons conducted this workshop very well. They were mainly from the community and it • helped the participants to get involved in the workshop with more interest and willingness for learning. • All participants were assigned task at their organisational level, which motivated them to plan strategies • for their organisations. This could be considered as an achievement of this training programme. • For the first time such an training programme has been initiated at national level exclusively for TG/Hijra • Organisations, the whole process was appreciated by all the participants. They were satisfied with the • training and felt the necessity of similar kinds training more in near future.

12. Next activity : The next workshop would be organised in November 2010 is titled as “Training on emotional support and friendly guidance and basic counselling skills”. Thank you !!