“Awareness on HIV and Reduce Stigma among the Hijra Community’ Project

Progress Report

“Awareness on HIV and Reduce Stigma among the Hijra Community’ Project

 

Supported by: Women Fund Asia

Implemented by :  Ashar Alo Society & Sompoker Niya Shetu

 

Title: Leadership Training Session on Emergency Response to COVID-19 with Gender Diverse Community.

Date: 24-04-2023 & 25-04-2023

Time: 09:30AM – 05:00PM

Venue: UNICAFE Restaurant & Fun

Address: Probal Tower, (2nd Floor) Adabor, Dhaka-1207.

Number Of Participants: 22

Participants: Community leaders, Community Members of Hijra community

Facilitators:

  1. Joya Sikder
  2. Rafiqul Islam

Objective:

The main objective of the Two-day Leadership Training session on Emergency Response to covid with Gender Diverse Population was to let them know how to ensure the basic facilities to the community people in a crisis situation like Covid-19 Pandemic. Since the Gender Diverse Population is overly stigmatized by our society, in many cases the community is abandoned of their basic rights. The aim of this meeting was to make them aware of the basic facilities provided by Government and make them aware of the emergency responses in a crisis movement. We also wanted to let them know about resource mobilization and how to mobilize resources in a crisis situation. Guiding them enough about Leadership building and make them resourceful enough to be able to take a lead in a crisis Situation was also our major priority. Through this training we also taught the 20 participants about the legal support Our state offers in hope that they will know their basic rights in accordance to the Bangladeshi law and they can ensure some legal help for themselves in an emergency crisis situation. Through all these Topics of the training the main focus was to make The Gender Diverse Community Prepared enough for Crisis situations like Covid-19 and teach them how to ensure their safety properly in a situation like this.

 

Concept:

In a major crisis situation like the Covid-19 Pandemic, the whole world had suffered Extreme sufferings and faced thousands of deaths. Many of those were because of lack of amenities and also lack of preparation to prevent the Virus attack. While the rest of the world battled for survival with help from the Government and other NGOs, A major community was totally abandoned in terms of getting covid relief help or getting proper awareness about this major Pandemic.

In Bangladesh, many people who are living below the poverty line, with limited resources to make a living. This pandemic has affected vulnerable populations, including informal workers, and other marginalized communities, such as transgender/hijra community, sex workers, Dalits (untouchables) persons with disabilities and many more. The main focus of this Training session was to shed light on the marginalized Gender Diverse Community on this crisis situation and help them become aware of the situation. Our main Goal was also to prepare them for a major crisis situation like this and also training them to be ready for any such situation in the future. The

 

training mainly focused on Leadership building, Crisis movement, Emergency response in a crisis situation, Resource mobilization and how to get Legal support. The training focused on The Gender Diverse Community to build leadership in them so they can be confident to take a lead in a crisis situation. We also trained them about crisis movement ways and how they can acquire emergency response to get legal help from the authorities. We believe that no emergency situation can be handled properly without proper knowledge of the crisis at hand. So, the main goal was to cover all aspects of a crisis situation like Covid-19 from Resource mobilization to emergency responses and legal help.

 

Program Flow:

On 24th December, the first day of training Joya Sikder and Md Rafiqul Islam jointly conducted training on Leadership Building. They presented a presentation to the participants and talked about how they can build their leadership abilities to handle an emergency situation like Covid-19 properly. Joya sikder talked about institutional capacity building and activities of an organization that can help the gender diverse community to handle a crisis situation on their own. Md Rafiqul Islam Talked about how they can be united strongly with taking lead and by working together how they can uphold their rights and demands to the respected authority.

 

On 25th December, the second day of the training the main focus was on emergency support and resource mobilization. Joya Sikder talked based on her presentation about how the gender diver community can get emergency support in a crisis situation. She also discussed where and from which authority they can claim their rightful support from. Md Rafiqul Islam took the stage to show a presentation and talk about resource mobilization and how to achieve that. He also talked about how the gender diverse community can get legal support and taught them all the different kinds of legal support that are being offered.

In this two-day long program, they were taught about the network building, laws and rights so the Gender Diverse Community can be aware to ensure their safety and protect themselves from a Crisis situation like Covid-19.

 

Lessons and challenges:

  1. We got to know about coordination to pull off a successful
  2. We got to know so much new information of our legal system through the research process for this training.
  3. Finding the venue was a challenge because the society is not accepting towards the gender diverse community.

 

Program Pictures: