Wajood – SRH Services and Crisis Response for Transgender and Hijra

Integrated and right-based approach to HIV prevention among transgender and hijra community Being transgender and hijra (TGH) is strongly associated with stigma and discrimination. TGH population also lack access to tailored HIV services. Alliance India has been implementing project Wajood with support from Amplify Change since November 2015 reaching more than 10,000 TGH for providing HIV sexual health services including support in feminisation, mitigating gender-based-violence and linking to social welfare and entitlements. Wajood project is implemented with implementing partners in six states – Basera Samajeek Sansthan in Delhi, Lakshya Trust in Gujarat, Alliance India’s regional office in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and Sangama Trust in Karnataka. The project supports community-led action for mitigation and prevention of gender-based violence among transgender and hijra population, increase awareness and access to sexual health reproductive health services and empower the community to formulate and propose policy change to protect the rights of trangender and Hijra population. The integrated sexual health services, gender-based violence and linkages to social protection schemes with HIV prevention has resulted in better outcomes in terms of increased access to diagnosis and linkages with treatment, care and support services. The project has also penetrated the subsets of TGH umbrella such as Jogappas & Shiva Shaktis (devotees of gods) and Hammam (TGH massage and recreational centres) based TGH.