‘Community champs’ to help frame policies on gays, CSWs

Nagpur: In a first, around 40 proactive members of the vulnerable population, those exposed to HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STI) and tuberculosis, have been groomed as ‘community champions’ to help government frame policies, implement schemes, create awareness and address problems of people affected by these health issues.The city-based community champions, who mostly represent the gay or men-having-sex-with-men and transgender people, underwent three-day training imparted by the Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society, and a training institution from Pune. Prior to Nagpur, similar training was also given at Thane, Pune and Kolhapur.Apart from gay and transgender people, the government also aims to rope in community champions from the Female Sex Workers (FSW), people living with HIV (PLHIV), and people who injects drugs (PWID).People with good networking, sound public relations and communication skills were identified and chosen as community champions.After training, the community champions are expected to work at the ground level, collect feedback, analyze and collate information, before sharing it and their experiences with the district level coordinators to ensure they reach the state authorities, who can forward such suggestions and communications to different bodies like the National AIDS Control Society (NACO) for policy framing and modification of government schemes.Anand Chandrani, an activist and president of Sarathi Trust, Nagpur, said the main objective of the concept of the community champions is to involve community members in the matters of policy-making.“The community champions would bridge the gap between government agencies and the beneficiaries at the ground level. The policies and future strategies would be set as per the needs of the key population for which these illness tackling measures would be implemented,” said Chandrani.