Empowering trans-women in Pakistan

Poster Launching on IDAHOT Day at NCHR                                                                 

The two posters designed for purposes of sensitizing police force, one on basic human rights of transgender populations under the Constitution of Pakistan and the second poster is on the duties of police towards transgender population. These posters are now on display in 121 police stations of Islamabad along with at a very prominent place in the office of the Inspector General Police of Islamabad, Pakistan.

One of the major achievements of VISION during this period is the development of the content on training and sensitization of police on basic human rights and the Transgender Protection Act 2018; it’s pretesting with the police personnel, launching and finally training 135 police officials who directly deal with the transgender population on daily basis.

The content is in a training manual format. The trained police officials can use the manual to further train and sensitize their peers on basic human rights and Transgender Protection Act 2018.

The training was conducted for three consecutive days with 30 to 40 participants on each day. This training also provided the transgender Youth Council (YC) members from Multan in Pakistan to facilitate some of the exercises in the manual. Otherwise too, the transgender YC was involved in this process of developing the content and pretest it. Some of the transgender YC members, especially requested VISION to attend the launching ceremony of the manual held at the Islamabad Police Training Academy.

https://www.facebook.com/islamabadpolice/videos/2114539472169905/

VISION considers this as one of its defining moments because it was requested by National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) to develop the manual for training the police officials of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). In addition to this, Islamabad police and its high officials thanked VISION for this effort and assured the organization that they would continue to engage with VISION on matters of human rights and Transgender Protection Act 2018, whenever needed.

Links:

• Launch of the training manual

• Police training by transgenders (PDF)
  

VISION team:

Guru Mumtaz, Asad (Mahi), Saima, Qasim Ali, Abdul Qayyum, Tahir Khilji

Date:

4/2/2019

Meeting with select Youth Council Members

This meeting was held in Islamabad at VISION’s office in the 4^th week of January. The need of the meeting was identified by team VISION in Islamabad after reviewing the final draft of the activity plan of the Youth Council (YC).

Thus, it was decided to bring in four YC members to Islamabad and have them complete the activity plan. During the two days that four YC members were in Islamabad, following issues were discussed at length along with completing the work-plan

1. Strict compliance of the Code of Conduct
2. Safety & Security plan for each activity
3. Reinforcement of maintaining confidentiality on matters linked to interpersonal communications between the members as well as of the activities of the YC
4. Conflict of interest- if any YC member/s is/are employed and have similar or close to similar job description as required by the designed activities of the YC; keeping the outcomes of the activities distinct and separate from each other and not reflecting the results of YC’s activities as an outcome of the activity under employment
5. Importance of developing a Detailed Implementation Plan (DIP)
6. Strict compliance of the financial policy of VISION and utmost transparency in all expenditures made

 Youth Council Members invited to a safety and security workshop

 Bytes for All, a partner organization of VISION, requested to nominate two participants from VISION to attend a 5 days comprehensive training on physical and digital security in Islamabad at two different points in time during this quarter. While Mahi participated in the first workshop, Momi, a YC member benefited from the second five day workshop.

 Activities of Youth Council Members during the Quarter 

Following are some of the activities conducted by YC during this quarter:

1. One YC meeting each month i.e. three in total during the quarter, Team VISION observed and supervised these meetings (Minutes of meetings are available if required)
2. Four SRHR awareness sessions in the community conducted by YC members as per activity plan. Team VISION assisted the YC members in this (Reports of sessions are available if required)
3. One day workshop on Stigma conducted by YC members as per activity plan. Team VISION assisted YC members in this activity ( Report of this workshop is available if required)
4. 3 days Safety & Security workshop conducted by team VISION in Islamabad for the entire YC in lieu of the YC’s activity on sensitization of Police in Multan

All the activities planned for the quarter were completed by the YC members except the Police sensitization activity. The reason for not holding the sensitization meeting was absence of any security plan of the YC, upon which time to time reminders were being sent to the YC but the members were unable to furnish an acceptable security plan. Thus, it was considered essential that the YC members come to Islamabad and prepare their security plans.

The urgency of the matter was noticed by team VISION Islamabad when one of the YC members late one night called Islamabad in a panicked situation, reporting that his Facebook and other accounts were hacked and that he was very scared. The individual was immediately referred to Bytes4All who calmed him and provided him the guidance that he needed.

In an another situation, one of the younger members of YC was in a high-anxiety condition and had gone through heart checkups as well, the background information on the condition as per some of the field team’s reports was blackmailing by random TG community members of outing the YC member to his family. Thus, it was decided that an immediate and urgent comprehensive training on physical and digital security should be arranged for the YC members to understand the importance of safety and security. This training was conducted in partnership with Bytes4All.

Other issues resolved during the Quarter:

1. In future there will be a coordinating body instead of lead and co-lead. This coordinating body will be on revolving basis so that all of the YC members get the chance to participate in the coordination and decision making of YC activities, in addition to sharing responsibility and acquiring skills of developing activities as well as report writing
2. That all the security plans will be strictly followed by YC members and they will reduce their vulnerability through safe and secure sharing of pictures and online information about themselves
3. The YC members now have individual as well as group security plan/s that they can follow for purposes of maximum security.

Youth Council Members encouraged to apply for Out of country workshop through VISION’s networks

VISION is a member of Centre for Sexual and Bodily Rights (CSBR) in Muslim societies. The YC members were encouraged to apply for a training workshop, the information of which coordinator of CSBR shared with VISION.  

The two day workshop with VISION’s Youth Council Members on matters related to activity plan, code of conduct for the youth council and finally the safety and security protocol for the youth council

On the first day of the workshop, team VISION mostly reflected on the activity plan of the youth council. Some of the key issues that were explored during the session were as follows:

• Whether the entire youth council has enough knowledge and understanding of the planned activities and if so what exactly do they understand by each activity and if not how can the team assist for them to clearly understand the objective and impact of the activity upon the council as well as the larger community that they were going to reach out to.
• It was also discussed in detail how each activity was designed by the council members and once the activity was designed, how did they foresee to execute the same activity i.e. highlighting the methodology of execution of the activity
• Since the council had already created a hierarchy within their system, team VISION reflected upon it and tried to understand the need of hierarchy as well as its positive and negative impact upon the smooth working of the council. The team VISION used the council’s conversation as a starting point for giving their own inputs on how a more democratic and inclusive council with decision making through a consultative process may provide better results along with trust-building, professionalism, negotiation skills and conflict resolution among the council members as a bi-product of the entire process.
• Team VISION introduced the council members to the framework of Detailed Implementation Plan (DIP) of the planned activities that includes Activities, Activity Detail, Modes of Verification, Responsibility of individual/s conducting the activity, Indicators and Timeline. Budget detailing i.e. break down of total budget available against each activity with proper heads such as: travel, refreshments, activity cost e.g. stationary, venue rental etc, was also explained to the council members. At the end of this session, a sample DIP of the activities was developed by the council members with an understanding that the same sample would be improved upon after the workshop by some of the group members who voluntarily agreed to take this responsibility upon themselves
• The session on Code of Conduct was a brainstorming session. It was mostly the participants i.e. the youth council members who provided their input as to what would be a mutually agreeable code of conduct for all of them as part of council members and if they were not conforming to any or all agree upon points then how would they take care of the matter. In addition to this, team VISION reemphasized the importance of code of conduct for the group and its smooth working for next one year
• Realizing the importance of safety and security of each council member separately as well as of all of them collectively another brainstorming session was conducted with the council members and it was the council members who spelled out their own vulnerabilities that made them the target for possible threats-internal as well as external, including what would be some of the capacities that would reduce the vulnerability and prepare them better to deal with threats. In this session, the importance of confidentiality of space and content was highlighted by team VISION, further adding that sometimes conversations and discussions can be used out of context and are blown out of proportion that can be hazardous for the youth council. In other words, “what happens within youth council remains within youth council”

Links:

• Search for us on Google
• Search for us on Facebook

• Pictures for Report (DOCX)

A pre-workshop session was held an evening before the workshop. In this session, the participants from Multan were introduced to the project objectives. In this introduction, along with the project and its objectives, VISION also introduced itself and its team that was going to conduct the workshop for the next two days.

Day 1 Informed consent

The session started with informed consent through a puppet act, where all the participants were explained the objectives of the workshop and were informed that their conversations will be documented in a report format as well as through a visual medium e.g. still photography and video documentation. The participants were asked that if they had any objection to any medium of documentation, they can communicate that and their conversation or pictures will not be included or taken for reporting purposes or their pictures will be taken from angles where they are not recognized. Following this act, the participants willingly gave their consent and the workshop started.

Norms Setting:

For purposes of remaining disciplined and organized, the participants were asked to set the basic norms for the two days workshop. Following are some of the norms that the participants volunteered:

1. Be punctual throughout the workshop
2. Do not interrupt ongoing conversations between facilitator/s and a participant
3. Raise your hand before asking questions
4. No whispering
5. Respect each other’s opinion
6. Do not criticize each other
7. Wait for your turn
8. Do not laugh at each other
9. Encourage each other

Introduction

Corresponding to the activity designed for purposes of introduction as described in the workshop design under activity 1 (Annex 1), following are some of the responses:

• Her name is Saima. She is from Multan. She is the team coordinator. The weakness I see in her is that she is willing to trust everyone and the good thing about her is that she is very invested in her work.
• This is Guru Akbar. He is from Lahore. The good thing about him is that he is very straight forward and that also sometimes become his weakness
• Asad is from Multan. He has the ability to make friends easily however, his weakness is that he wastes time where something can be done in five minutes, he takes an hour
• Chanda is from Multan. She is very caring. She tries to help out all those who are around her. Her weakness is that she is very emotional
• Sarim has masters in commerce. Good thing about him is that he is very helping and his weakness is that he is straight forward
• His name is Shahid. Shahid has masters’ degree in psychology. The good thing about him is that he takes ownership of his identity and the weakness is that he trusts everyone and that sometimes becomes a challenge for him
• His name is Tayyab. The good thing about him is that whatever he has in his heart he says it out loud and the weakness is that he talks about his private matters especially regarding domestic issues with his friends
• His name is Saif ur Rehman. The good thing about him is that even if I do not say anything he would understand but the weakness is that he gets excited easily
• His name is Farhad. He has finished his Intermediate in Sciences and has worked with different NGOs for 6 to 7 years. The good thing about him is that he is a pleasant person and the weakness is that he is very outspoken
• He is Adnan. He does Arts. The good thing about him is that he is a pleasant person and the weakness is that he gets angry and emotional easily
• His name is Asad and he is from Multan. He works with VISION. Good thing about him is that he is pleasant and whenever anybody goes to his Dera (living space of Transgenders) he meets her/him nicely and the weakness is that he has vanity (Nakhra in Urdu)
• Her name is Usman (Payal). She has finished her secondary school. The good thing about her is that she is very respectful even towards people who may be younger to her. The weakness for right now is that she is flirting with one of the facilitators
•  Her name is Monaza. She has a Masters in Social Sciences and has worked at several places. While working with VISION in pervious projects, it was her first experience to work with this group. She considers herself to be a learner and wants to continue learning. She always fulfils the commitments that she may have made. She has worked on projects regarding livelihood. The weakness is that she gets angry easily

Random Walk

The second activity after the introduction in the first half of the day was random walk. The objective of this activity was to enhance trust and team building among the participants and negotiation of spaces that one may find desirable for her/himself.

The activity was divided into three parts. In the first part, each individual had to randomly walk in a given space on the beat of the music. Once the music stopped, the participants also had to stop and fill each spot in the allocated space. The second part of the activity was to divide in pairs and maintain eye contact with each other while walking however, the challenge was that each pair was to find a suitable place for itself not bumping into each other. The final part of this activity was that while one partner had her/his eyes closed, the other had to walk along and guide that partner to a suitable space for filling it up. The same exercise was to be repeated by the other partner who had closed the eyes earlier.

Following was some of the reflections on this exercise:

• Liked the activity very much. We were walking with closed eyes.
• I think the objective of this activity was that if one did not know the way then the other was supposed to guide him/her and take him/her along.
• It was for purposes of taking your companion along with you
• It inculcated a sense of responsibility in me
• I had to trust my companion
• I had the fear of falling but I trusted my companion
• Through eye contact we were able to develop confidence in each other. I also felt that I could look into other people’s eyes and can walk in the society and say whatever I want to say
• I had a fear of falling
• I had the fear of bumping in others
• I trusted my companion
• I felt that we also have people around us such as our community
• When I opened my eyes and helped the other person to walk, that’s when I realized my responsibility and thought that since my companion had walked me without any problems therefore I should also do the same
• I liked helping others
• We were telling each other
• It enhanced confidence in each other
• The way I helped my companion, I expected him to help me 

Captain of the Ship

The part objective of this exercise is to firstly understand the community’s perspective of leadership and their own notion of who can be a leader and what they may want to see as some of the qualities in their leader. This exercise was also aimed to enhance listening skills as well as understanding and following the instructions. It was designed to enable the participants to empathize with the leadership of the group and the challenge that the leader may be facing but still is willing to lead everyone through a problematic situation. This exercise also encouraged the participants to use their skills to the maximum or even if they do not have certain skills, it forced them to make an effort to acquire that skill.

On question what motivated them to choose a particular person as their captain, following were some of the key responses:

• He speaks English and is intelligent  and he helps everyone
• He has the ability of a leader
• We felt that the leader is intelligent and knows how to handle the situation

Remaining questions generated a discussion which is captured as follows:

“The quality of a leader should be that he is able to speak and has a sense of responsibility towards others. He should feel the pain of others and should be sensitive towards the needs of her/his people. Should be a strong personality and should be flexible. Leader is like a parent and he/she should exude a sense that makes others feel that she/he is one of them. Leader should be such that one can share everything with her/him. A leader should be innovative and should not be following others. A leader should be educated and a responsible person who is willing to take others along and feels responsible for everyone around him/her. S/he should also be aware of all the information regarding the people who have chosen him/her as a leader. Leader never orders rather plans things along with his/her people. A leader should listen to everyone and should try to solve their problems. A leader should not feel superior to his/her own people and should consider them, her/his supporters as equals.”

On the segment of strategy of how to save the ship, following were some of the thoughts:

“I selected 2 sub leaders who were responsible to provide emergency support/assistance wherever needed in the ship e.g. life jackets, water bottles, oxygen cylinders and etc. As a backup plan a helicopter was arranged for evacuation as final and last resort in case the ship capsized. Aside from these two people, one person with Information Technology (IT) background was appointed to stay in touch with air/land base via wireless equipments. The leader expected that everybody in the ship would cooperate and give inputs in terms of efforts physical and emotional support. The leader felt that with all the preparations there was miscommunication in terms of handling the situation”

As far as the people who were in the ship were concerned following was some of the discussion that took place after the activity:

“I was scared of drowning in the water. It was a difficult time. We judged that some of us had skills, although we select leaders but we are not able to communicate with them which results in miscommunication. Leader should not be asking others rather than making decisions. Tell me, if it was a real life situation, would Sarim-leader in this activity, have been able to resolve or solve all the problems that we were facing with similar courage. Anyways, there was lot of encouragement. Every person was helping each other. I was feeling that my life was in danger. Since I was playing a pregnant woman, my fear was that all these jolts may cause miscarriage. From a real life perspective, I think Sarim has the quality of gauging the situation and with courage and far sightedness in finding a solution.

The one who was playing my husband was providing me with all the proper protocol. He was bringing me water and oxygen whenever I needed it.”

The leader reflected upon his experience in the following way:

“We do not differentiate between dictatorship and leadership. All the people in the ship were expecting that I was a dictator whereas; I feel that all the people had selected me. I feel that a leader will always take his/her people along. I was feeling the responsibility but there was a communication gap. I did not know that there was a pregnant woman on board. For leader, it is very important to have 360 degree clarity of things. Of course there is a risk factor in everything. I did not show my own fear to anyone of them because that would have developed into a crisis and they would have lost confidence and for purposes of keeping hope alive, I hid my own fear. I knew that there was chaos on the ship but to survive the mess up I did not leave my place.

See, if the team that had been selected was introduced to us, this chaos could have been avoided.”

River of Life

The Activity River of Life helped participants to go through each segment of their lives and think in a way that they could verbalize it with the raw feelings that they felt at the moment. Some of the conversations captured in the reflection are as follows.

ADNAN: I have been my mother’s favorite. These pictures on the chart reflect my mother and me together. My mother wanted a girl when I was born. She used to dress me up as a girl. Till middle school, I was very attached to my younger sister. I used to sleep soundly in my childhood. I am fond of going out of the country and exploring the world. I like keeping cell phones that are expensive and branded. In childhood, I used to scream a lot. I was an angry child. There was not much freedom for me during my childhood. At 9 O’clock the doors of the house used to close. My father was working in Saudi Arabia. I was very girlish and was fond of painting. I wanted freedom. My father would buy me colors to paint. I am fond of wearing good clothes. I want people to admire me for my clothes. I am a student of fine arts. This picture is showing that I am interested in boys. I am gay. I am fond of fashion designing. I am very fond of wearing colognes and always want that my cologne should leave a trail of fragrance from wherever I walk. I like eating sweet things. I want to be in showbiz and become a makeup artist. I want that I should do the makeup of actors acting in a play. I want to have long hair. I want to possess lot of clothes and shoes. In future, I want to explore the world. I want to be acknowledged through an award for my work as a makeup artist.

SARIM: My life is quite complex. In childhood, I used to be like girls. I used to put on makeup and play with dolls. I had a childhood crush. I wanted that this person should remain with me all the time. We used to share toffees with each other. I was sexually abused and was subject to sexual violence. There was a group who wanted to change my orientation and in that process they abused me and then beat me. After that I decided that I needed support. That is when I told my family about myself. It took three years and then the family not only accepted me but accepted me from their hearts. This helped me in taking a leap forward. This picture that shows two signs stands for the male and female sign. For me both are equal. This is advocacy. One should raise one’s voice so that it brings results. In future, I want to go outside Pakistan and work for the rights of LGBT. This flag in the picture is the rainbow flag which signifies the LGBT populations. I also see myself balancing between my personal and professional life. I am not hungry for award or recognition. I just want to put my share in the movement of LGBT.

ASAD: There are many things that I cannot express. I have always been scared of bicycles. All the boys in my family would bike around except me, for which my cousins would taunt me and mentally torture me to have this fear of biking. I love remaining in fantasy world. I like cartoons. Till class 8^th, I was always nervous and even though I had good grades but my fear of biking could never be substituted by the grades I brought in my studies. I am very comfortable with girls. At one point in my life, I became very ugly. I may not have any picture of that time. Then when I grew up, I thought to myself that I should do something to overcome this fear of riding a bike and I bought myself a camera. I am a social media star. My pictures are discussed internationally and on Instagram. People appreciate my photography. I like travelling and seeing different countries. I like things organized. I may not have that much power but the picture of this girl depicts that I want to achieve my aims like her. Here I have put a picture where I am trying to tell people that I want to remain energetic till my last breath.

USMAN: This picture is of me and my mother together. My mother wanted a girl. This other picture shows my father and his children. I love my younger sister. This picture shows a wedding and a family. This is me, this is my husband and these are my children. I want to be like her. This picture is of my husband and me. I told you that this is my father.

FARHAD: This is time that is swiftly going by. This is my mother’s birthday and she celebrates it with lot of fondness. This is the person I had an affair with and that is why I never studied. I am not an educated person. Then I thought that maybe I should get into the business of selling cosmetics. This is me as a beautician. This is my wife and my child.

SAIF: This picture reminds me of my mother and father and when I was very small and was being bottle fed. I was very fond of dancing. The people used to taunt me on that. I started doing functions but decided that I should not tarnish the honor of my family. Then I thought maybe I should have a wife and children and once married, this picture shows that we are all travelling and going to different places.

TAYYAB: I am tayyab and a student of ICS from Multan. I have learnt one thing in life that unless I am not willing to change myself, nobody is going to change me. I am from a middle class family. In my childhood, I used to enjoy a lot. In present, for me my studies are very important. Until and unless we are not equipped with education, how can we move ahead? I have lots of dreams but for that I have to change myself. These are my best friends. They help me in everything. We move on with consensus. Even if we are from third gender, still we have to move on like everyone else. I want that I should have everything available to me and at no point should I ask anyone for any kind of help.

During the refection process, following were some of the thoughts that were shared in the session:

• A nice activity helped us in remembering our old times
• There are many people in the world who become judgmental and that’s why at times we are not able to express ourselves
• I went into this flashback where many memories came back. In past, I did not have the realization that I was being harassed.
• One cannot change the childhood. 50% of my childhood and 50% of my present situation is fine.
• I learnt from other people’s life story also and this has started a learning process for me.
• We thought that our lives were tough but it seems that everybody had problems in their lives.
• This has provided me with an opportunity to tell people about my life.
• The past was painful.
• The future part is good.
• Now people taunts my family that your son is a Khusra (transgender)
• I felt that others in the room had a far more complicated life than mine.
• I liked it. This fantasy world where there are so many colors through these pictures. This was my desire that I should be provided with a platform from where I could tell people about my life.
• What I did not like the most was my past and what I liked is the thinking about future.
• One can change the present but cannot do anything about the past and that always remains like a crack in your life that you have to live with.

Concluding this session, the facilitator emphasized that the objective of the exercise was never to cause any pain to the participants but sometimes we keep certain harmful things and thoughts within our system and this bottling up of such emotions does not have a positive effect on the person’s mental and physical health. At times, it is best to speak about them and get it out of the system. He further added that if this exercise caused any grief especially in revisiting the childhood, he is apologetic however, now that they have spoken about it, it’s best to reach out to the facilitator or the remaining facilitation team to talk about these issues whenever they feel haunted by their past. He ensured all the participants that team VISION is always accessible to listen to them on whatever issues that they may have faced in their childhood or may be facing in their present situations.

Struggle and Skills needed to achieve the Aspirations 

On the two video clips that were viewed by the participants as an example of two different people struggling and getting what they wanted in their lives by keeping their focus on the objectives that they wanted to achieve in front of them. On the first video clip that was capturing some moments of life of a famous Pakistani female singer, following were some of the thoughts shared by the participants:

• She respected her teacher
• She continued the learning process throughout her life
• Whosoever respect their teachers will always be successful in their lives
• Her teacher was her Guru and she would not want to be separated from him for a single moment in her life as she wanted to learn everything from him
• She said in her conversation that without a teacher there is nothing that one can do
• Where she was in her life and what she had achieved, she could have taken credit for everything but remained humble and responded with humility

On the other video which was about an individual who was an acid burn survivor, following were some of the reflections:

• You made us cry
• Now when we see our lives, it seems easy
• The woman had an objective in her life and her focus was to get her daughters and she continued to fight for them
• Nobody supported her, not even her parents and she managed to continue healing her own wounds that resulted from the acid attack with courage
• She was going through very tough times; physically and mentally and there was not even a single soul to pray for her
• I had a female teacher who was a daughter of a fruit vendor. She studied and started teaching in a school. She earned and saved for marrying her other sisters. Once all the sisters were married, most of her friends suggested her to get married as well. She agreed and her marriage was arranged. One of the brothers in law did not want her to marry because that would have stopped the flow of income that was coming from her. To ensure that she does not remain marriageable, what he did was that he threw acid on her. She survived the attack with the intervention from the project “SMILE” that is part of this beauty parlor chain called Depilex. However, still the woman wears a Niqaab (veil) and her eyes are visible only. She continues to teach but has restricted herself from social mingling. Yes, she did report the matter to the authorities. The brother in law was arrested but then the sister came and begged her to forgive the brother in law as the sister had little children and there was nobody to look after them. 

Perspective Building

In perspective building exercises, two different activities were conducted. In the first activity, a chart paper with an enlarged figure 3 in the middle of the paper was put in centre and the participants were asked to divide themselves in 3 different angles or sides of the chart. Three participants each stood on each side.

For one group of three, this figure was a letter “W”, whereas, for one group it was “3” and for another group it was “E”. This is when the facilitators explained to the participants that it all depends where one is placed in life and viewing a situation. It is essential that we respect all the points of views and take into account all perspectives while analyzing a situation.

The second activity was conducted with a glass of water which was half full. When the facilitator showed the glass with water to the participants and asked the question as to what they saw in the glass. Most of them answered that they saw half glass of water while the other half was empty. At this point, the facilitator reinforced that the choice remains always with individuals whether they want to see half glass full and be grateful that half is full while striving to fill the remaining half or always complain about the empty part of the glass. Referring to the video clips shared earlier with the participants, the facilitator said that probably in both situations the two ladies saw half glass full and kept on struggling for filling up the remaining half. Therefore, it is one’s own perspective of looking and analyzing the situation that enables them to make the best of their lives. 

Day 2

The day started with the facilitators telling the participants the agenda of the day while talking about the agenda the facilitators also informed that since there will be two guests speakers and except that they will be coming in the first half of the day, the precise time of the speakers is not known and thus, planned activities may have to discontinue our upon their arrival, however, the activities will be continued as per schedule once the guest speakers depart. At this point, the facilitators then asked the participants to reflect upon the previous day which is as follows:

Reflection on Previous Day 

• What I remember from yesterday is random walk. Supporting each other, caring for each other and trusting each other
• It was an interesting exercise when we were looking into each other’s eyes and were also walking with closed eyes
• My takeaway from yesterday was that life is never complete and one has to continue the struggle for getting somewhere. I want to take full advantage of this space and the objective of this workshop
• My reference point is River of Life and it was through that; I realized the distinction between my past and my present
• My reference point is the theatre activity from yesterday and it was a good reflection of the turning points in the life of a transgender person
• The theatre was a great way of creating awareness in general public
• In reference to problem tree, I figured out how we can resolve some of our problems by using the laws
• Through the problem tree I learnt to find solutions to my problems
• In the exercise regarding problem tree, I understood that one has to first inspect the problem properly and find the reason of why the problem is there

Reflection:

This activity was followed by a reflection session in which the participants were able to reflect upon the efficacy and possible implementation. Some of the thoughts that came from the group are as follows:

• When I was asked to sit down and he took off my dupatta and caught my hand, he was sexually harassing me
• There are many laws but nothing gets implemented and also we do not know of all the laws. We should be aware of laws.
• We should identify some lawyer in Multan who is supportive to the cause of transgender people and whenever needed can be helpful for us

 When asked the question that how can the law be implemented? Some of the responses are as follows:

• We should empower ourselves and should know the laws, in addition to sensitizing the different departments of our needs
• If I am a policy maker then I will analyze the problems that the transgender populations are facing and will see where the gaps are in law so that I can address the problems. I will also make a plan to monitor myself.

At the end of the workshop, team VISION distributed red ribbon pins (symbolizing protection from HIV & AIDS) to all the participants and suggested that it would be nice to hear a pledge from the participants that they would do their best to protect themselves and their friends by creating the awareness on protection from HIV & AIDS. They were further encouraged to use social media to spread out the message on the wider scale in their own networks.

The facilitator said that it will be a good start to do this campaign if by next workshop at the end of November each one of them has seeked a similar pledge from ten of their friends and whosoever becomes part of the network should wear this pin.

The facilitator further reinforce that the participants should also do the same with the law that team VISION has now translated in Urdu for them. In other words, the participants should circulate this law among their friends through the medium of social media.

The workshop ended with the final comment that transgender persons will benefit immensely if the above information is shared widely

• Workshop design for Global Giving.docx (DOCX)

1. Inception workshop
2. Identification of beneficiaries
3. Interactive session with the beneficiaries
4. Developing database of interactive sessions
5. Developing criteria for selection of Youth Council
6. First mock meeting of the Youth Council

 Inception workshop:

VISION held two inception workshops of one day each in Rawalpindi and Mardan respectively. In both the workshops, the entire team VISION was present and during the day-long session, the history of this project was shared with the team, along with the activity plan and deliverables, supplemented by the budget of the project.

In the 2^nd half of the day, VISION’s internal monitoring mechanism was discussed. The details of daily reports, the process of reflection upon the reports and finally the development of database was also part of the discussion

Following this session, the tools that were to be used in the interactive session with the community were shared with the team and re-familiarization with each tool such as the malamal game, the IEC material, the possibility of using sand-table exercise was discussed in this final session.

Identification of beneficiaries and interactive sessions:                                                                                                                    

In each outreach session some of the following activities are permanently used for purposes of engagement and understanding the group along with identification of individuals who reflect promise and qualities that are considered pre-requisites of leadership skills.

The session always starts with introductions led by Field Coordinator (FC) - who is one of the senior representatives i.e. Guru of the community.  Following the introduction, the FC further explains the objectives of the session and also talks about the current funding and the expectations of the donor from the project. It is also explained to the group that while there may not be any financial incentive for this gathering, however, there is a built-in incentive of enhancement of skills and potential trainings that may help the community to increase their job opportunities and enable them to become part of the mainstream job market.

Another incentive that VISION has linked to these sessions is that of membership. The group is explained that whosoever among them will become a member of VISION’s initiative of building leadership skills, that individual/s will be facilitated in matters related to acquiring National Identity Card (NIC), against police harassment, HIV testing and identification of health facilities providing free medication and judicial matters where fundamental rights of the community have been infringed etc.

Before the initiation of any session a proper informed consent of the participant is taken either verbally or through a puppet act. This informed consent includes the permission of taking pictures as well. Only those individuals are photographed who give the permission to the outreach team.

Activities during the session:

The leading activities during these sessions are:

 Malamal board game:

The malamal board game is similar to monopoly except malamal covers a broad range of issues that are relevant to everyday life of street populations and/or populations living on the margins of the society. Some of the issues that are pertinent to this specific population are: awareness on HIV & AIDS, recourse in cases where there is a potential threat of arrest, judicial remedies, opening bank account, renting and buying properties etc.

The rationale for using malamal in the sessions is multifold. First of all the community finds this game interesting and is willing to engage with the outreach team. The game also brings structure into the life of the community for a brief period where each person has to wait for her/his turn to roll the dice. Since the game is mostly based upon questions with multiple answers therefore, it motivates analytical thinking in individuals who maybe playing the game.

This game further generates discussions on wrong answers and aptly provides entry points to outreach team to dispel myths and misconceptions regarding diseases, tenant’s powers, police authority, essential documents for opening bank account, applying for travel documents such as passport and much more. In addition to this the game increases the attention span of the players; it also enables them to understand that the knowledge acquired through playing the game is useful in their daily lives as well as in the lives of their other community members.

Since the game has fake currency and different investments with a proper banking system, it introduces the community to the world of business and investment through saving their income and using the banking system.

Finally for the outreach team, the reactions of the players, their level of engagement, their discussions with each other and their taking pride in winning the game provides an opportunity to identify potential possibilities for youth councils and its membership. The numbers of sessions conducted during this quarter along with the count of participants and identified potential council members is attached with this report in a table format as annex 1

Use of IEC materials: 

In the same sessions the malamal game is supplemented with the IEC materials- the sample of which is visible above. These IEC materials enables the outreach team/s to emphasize upon some of those issues that are considered essential to build-up leadership skills in any individual e.g. problem solving, conflict resolution, having correct and accurate information to guide others etc.

The methodology of using these IEC materials is simple and easy to follow, the outreach teams have the knowledge of the package of materials that they may-be carrying to these sessions. During the discussions whenever there is any ambiguity, the outreach team pulls out the relevant materials for purposes of explaining the process. The material is then passed around among the session participants who then take a look at it and if can read, also read the messages along with the pictorial. At times if there are participants in the group who may not be literate then their peers who can read also help the others to understand the messages. In any case most of this process is conducted by the Field Coordinator who belongs to the community.

Developing database of interactive sessions:

 The database is structured upon the information received in daily reports of the outreach teams. While the main page provides: Names, Orientation, Ages, Skill level, Education, Residence, Profession, Status of National Identity Card and etc; it is the activity page and its analysis that provides insight into the outcomes of each activity during the session as mentioned above.

 Each activity has a range of 1-5, 1 being poor and 5 is excellent. After each activity the participants are asked to rate each activity on the above scale. The ratings are used to further generate figures precisely depicting the effectiveness and popularity of the activity. In monthly meetings, these figures are discussed and wherever any tweaking is required, the team collectively comes up with solutions to better the activity.

 A pictorial link to all the activities will be shortly attached with this report