Sangama

Sangama's rights work is increasingly being recognized as one of the most effectiveآ models of responding to human rights violations against sexuality minorities. Many small sexuality minority community groups, particularly from Tamil Nadu, are now asking us for assistance in setting up their own rights-based intervention programs. This is a new and welcome development.

Sangama's geographical areas of operation go beyond Bangalore. In Karnataka, there are operations in both rural and urban Bangalore in addition to Mysore. Sangama also operates in Kerala (Trichur, Calicut and Trivandrum) and Tamil Nadu (Krishnagiri).

Sangama believes that services could be best provided to the community by the community. Samara is a community organization initiated by Sangama that has turned service provision into a “Community Lead Structured Interventionâ€‌ (CLSI). Samara has already taken over service provision and crisis interventions in one of the zones.

Cinical Services

The Sangama offices in Bangalore comprise of the head office plus four zones located throughout the city. All of the four zones have a trained counselor whose responsibilities include providing care, support, information and referral services. There are three fully functioning Program Linked Clinics (PLC) in each of the three zones with one counselor, doctor and a nurse. The PLCs provide quality STI health care services, including HIV testing and psychological support.

Drop In Centers (DIC)

All of the clinics and the head office have Drop In Centers (DIC) that provide a safe space for sexuality minorities and their partners to gain information, support and resources. Program sessions and activities are planned everyday that include games, cultural events, television programs and competitions such as Rangoli. There are regular screenings of documentary film and cinema, workshop discussions, and a variety of newspapers and magazine available through our library.

Crisis Intervention 24 x 7

Sangama has been actively intervening in the crisis faced by the community. There are currently six telephone lines that are answered by the crisis team made up largely of community members, but also include staff. The crisis team responds instantaneously to crises and if needed Sangama lawyers are asked to intervene. The majority of the crises occur due to confrontations with the police, goondas or the individuals families. In the past eight months alone, Sangama attended to 159 crisis events.

If you are a sexuality minority and face harassment or violence from your family, police, the goonda, your workplace or the public, please feel free to contact Sangamas 24 Hr Helplines listed below:

• 9945601651/52
• 9945601653/54
• 9945231493
• 080-23439124( LesBiT)
• 9945231494 (Samara)

Legal and Advocacy Support

Sangama has on staff 2 lawyers who provide legal advice and counsel for a wide range of issues.

Library/Documentation Centre

Our library contains more than 500 books both fiction and non-fiction that deal with sexuality studies. We have been thoroughly documenting information in Kannada, English and Tamil through newspaper clippings (12 daily newspapers), journals, newsletters, books, reports, conference papers, and films. In addition to this, it has a wide collection of journal and newspaper articles related to issues of sexuality, queer culture, sexual and reproductive health, and much more.

Films

Sangama has produced two documentary films, both directed by T. Jayashree.

Many People Many Desires explores in depth the place of a gay, lesbian, hijra, kothi or a transgendered person in Indian civil society through personal narratives. Irrespective of whether one is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person, he or she cannot legally exist as such in India. Legal discrimination against sexuality minorities operates through the criminal and civil law systems under Section 377 of the Indian penal code (IPC), a law imposed under British colonial rule criminalizing homosexual behaviour. This law remains in the Indian statute books although it has long since been removed from the British statute book.

Cutting across class, gender, language and caste, the film tells the stories of gay/bisexual/lesbian persons living in the city of Bangalore. Through them it brings forth the debate on the basic right to one's sexual/gender expression, and it aims to mobilize debate and discussion and generate support from within and outside the sexual minority communities.

A Human Question: Tracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the costs of human life? The film explores the complex world of Patents and HIV/AIDS medicines by connecting and contrasting personal narratives with those of international lobbyists and activists. The human questions raised in the film will force us to rethink the relationship between Intellectual Property and Human rights.