About the Project
Since its establishment in 2009, Chhattisgarh Mitwa Sankalp Samiti has been working to build understanding, dialogue, and sensitivity towards the transgender community. Over the years, the Samiti has conducted more than 20,000 awareness and sensitization sessions, reaching over one lakh participants.
These sessions cover transgender identity and definitions, history, typology, psychology, life cycle, challenges, gender, sex and sexuality, LGBTQIA+ issues, laws, Supreme Court judgments, and the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. The sessions are designed according to the audience—whether students, youth, teachers, police personnel, government officials, institutions, or the wider community.
This sustained engagement has contributed to meaningful changes. Sensitization with the police helped create a Third Gender category in the recruitment system, and today 32 transgender persons are serving as police constables in Chhattisgarh. It has also contributed to the inclusion of transgender-friendly facilities in public toilets, government support for transgender shelter infrastructure, and the inclusion of transgender-related questions in Vyapam and State PSC examinations.
Transgender-related modules have also been introduced in police academies, police training schools, administrative academies, B.Ed. programmes, DIETs, and other training institutions, along with learning materials for teachers. These efforts have helped reduce the gap between government institutions, mainstream society, and the transgender community.
We have learned that acceptance cannot come without understanding. Every sensitization session is therefore more than a workshop—it is an effort to change perceptions and build a more inclusive society.
Many of these sessions were conducted without financial support. We travelled by buses, used public spaces to get ready, and reached communities with whatever resources we had. We continued because, for us, this work is not just a programme—it is a responsibility and a belief in change.
What began with conversations in our neighbourhoods and communities in Chhattisgarh has reached platforms as far as Boston University, USA.
We believe that a small step towards understanding can change a person’s perspective—and changed perspectives can ultimately change society.
