The Hijra community in Bangladesh urgently need housing, health care, access to education and equal opportunities in all aspects of life that are currently systemically denied to them. Your support will help us build the first Bangladeshi Hijra community shelter and provide a much needed safe space for them. What are we doing? As a group of Bangladeshi diaspora queers, we want to support precarious queer and trans comrades living in Bangladesh by raising $31,300 CAD. Our pilot project will support 10 Bangladeshi trans youth over the course of one year by easing some barriers related to basic needs such as safer housing, health services and social support. This crucial undertaking will be done with the organization Shacheton Hijra Odhikar Jubo Sangha (SHOJS). SHOJS is a hijra-led grassroots organization working since the 1990s. Funds will be held in trust by Helping Hands International, a registered charity. Charitable tax receipts will be issued through LFEBridge for donations above $50. All funds will be transferred to SHOJS' bank account and will be accounted for and reviewed by our charitable trustee. Who are we? "Bangladeshi Queer Liberation" is a collective led by queer, nonbinary and trans Bangladeshi diaspora organizers who are working to actively support grassroots movements for and with our queer and trans kin in Bangladesh. We collectively bring over a decade of community organizing experience in Tkaronto supporting LGBTQI+ initiatives. Shacheton Hijra Odhikar Jubo Shangha (SHOJHS) is a hijra-led grassroots organization working since 1990s. Their focus is on advocating for hijra rights and providing support to local trans kin with access to health services, housing and social supports. Srabonti Apa is an Elder and organizer in the Bangladeshi Hijra community and continues to lead efforts with SHOJHS on the ground with mutual aid support and has connected with BQL to initiate this fundraiser — the first transnational mutual aid project of its kind. Who are we supporting? South Asia has many terms for gender-variant people. Two well-known identities within this spectrum are hijra and kothi. These umbrella terms encompass intersex and nonbinary people, castrated men and transgender women. They often come from poor families where they’ve been kicked out of their houses, and live as a community or “family” under a community leader or “guru”. It is more accurate to understand hijras and kothis as culturally and socio-economically distinct communities rather than as a gender or sex designation, as Srabonti Apa describes: As a community leader, Srabonti Apa works with many precarious youth who rely on her for support and aid after having been kicked out by their families of origin. Many sleep in train stations or on the street, and engage in odd jobs or survival sex work to make ends meet. They have no meaningful opportunities for education or social advancement, and desperately need a stable environment where they can dream, envision and work towards a thriving future for themselves. Why is it urgent? As a highly visible minority, hijras have recently been the subject of heightened media attention and affirmative government policies in Bangladesh. However, accessing government-incentivized jobs or other limited benefits often requires people to subject themselves to invasive medical scrutiny. Even when hijras are able to access formal employment, their working environments are often very unsafe due to cultural stigma, religious bigotry, and sexual harassment. More of our trans kin are coming to terms with their identities leading to greater instances of transphobia and displacement from their immediate families. Consequently, they are migrating to the capital city of Dhaka and seeking social supports, which are seldom adequate or comprehensive to their specific needs. According to home ministry data, among a total of documented 13,000 members of the hijra community, only 1,920 have received training this fiscal year. Only those aged 50 years and above are being given an allowance of 600 taka ($7.32 CAD) per month. The rest of the community is currently unsupported and many trans people have stated that they have not been able to access any of these supposedly earmarked funds. This is a major gap in services, putting the Hijra community in serious danger and disadvantage. At present, Srabonti Apa is in touch with several unhoused youth who, like so many others, have fallen through these cracks and urgently need housing. In the next six months, it is critical to provide safe housing and access to social services for their well-being. Call to Action We are raising $ 31,300 CAD over the next two months to bring this trans shelter to a reality for our precarious comrades in Bangladesh. Your support can directly impact the lives of marginalized trans Bangladeshi youth. Budget breakdown for 1-year pilot mutual aid project Rent: $4,400 Furniture/ Personal Items: $1,600 Food: $8,600 | Medical Expenses: $10,400 Phone/ Internet/ Cable: $800 Staff Wages: $5,500 Total: $31,300 *All figures are in CAD rounded up to the nearest $100 We need to raise a minimum of $9,025 to set up and run the shelter for 3 months. If we do not raise the full $31,300 we will start the shelter with this amount and continue ongoing fundraising efforts. If you are interested in organizing your own events or call to action to support this fundraiser, reach out to us via email. Resources for further information: Daily Star Article on the Hijra Community Academic Literature Review All funds collected for this initiative are held and managed by Helping Hands Intl. a registered charity in Canada. There has been some confusion about the organization, as there is a similarly named organization operating in the US with a Christian missionary-based mandate. Helping Hands Intl. Canada is not religiously afiliated, and has a mandate for helping people in marginalized communities and creating pro-social opportunities for youth. Read more about them here.
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