Humsafar Trust

Humsafar programme components include:

• Community work
• Counselling services
• Condom promotion
• Street outreach
• Voluntary confidential counselling and testing centre (VCCTC) and sexually transmitted infection (STI) services
• Care and support
• Behaviour change communication (BCC) strategies and tools - including films and printed materials
• Advocacy
• Networking
• Research
• Training
• Project management

Using its firsthand knowledge of MSM and TG in this metropolitan area, the organisation has tailored its HIV and health programming to respond to the diverse needs of these populations in a sometimes difficult cultural and political environment. The Humsafar Centre was established as a gathering place and educational centre - meant to be a safe space for self-identified gay and bisexual men.

Humsafar has worked closely with a number of government health facilities, most extensively Sion Hospital, to provide sustained training and sensitisation programmes for health care workers, clinical staff, and policymakers on the needs of MSM and TG patients and people living with HIV and AIDS.

A significant portion of Humsafar's programmatic work has focused on HIV prevention, particularly street outreach and condom promotion activities. This involves cruising sites such as parks, public toilets, cinemas, truck stops, and beaches to reach MSM looking for sex partners. At these sites, outreach workers may use a series of encounters over several weeks to "introduce" themselves and identify those men who are MSM. In designing its outreach materials, Humsafar has found it necessary to be careful how it represents sexual behaviour. One example is the instruction leaflet Humsafar distributes with condoms. Given the criminalised status of sex between men at the time of the leaflet's design, Humsafar decided to remove any reference to anal sex to protect its outreach workers from accusations of distributing pornography and encouraging criminal acts. This leaflet is given out during HIV prevention discussions with MSM that are more explicit about the risk of unprotected anal sex.

Telephone helpline and email counselling that complement the services available at Humsafar's drop-in centres are designed especially to reach men who want to maintain their anonymity. Humsafar's Gaurav Aastha Project specifically focuses on male sex workers who do not self-identify as MSM and provides another access point to reach the customers of these men with prevention messages.

Beyond Mumbai, Humsafar has become one of a small group of Indian organisations working with sexual minorities that influence the development of HIV policies and programming at home and around the world.

For further details on this organisation's strategies and programmes, visit the Humsafar Trust website.

HIV/AIDS, Gender, Rights.

Recent studies confirm that, globally, MSM are at significantly greater risk for HIV infection than other adults of reproductive age, due to a combination of biological, behavioral, and structural factors.

Philosophically and as a point of policy, Humsafar avoids replicating existing services or taking over the fundamental responsibility of the government to provide health services, including those related to HIV. As of 2010, Humsafar reported reaching more than 12,000 clients annually with HIV and health services at 3 clinics and drop-in centres as well as through its street outreach and other prevention programming. The organisation has 2 professional counsellors and 7 community counselors, who are trained MSM and TG and thus are personally familiar with many of the issues clients face. The clinical services are supported by 7 part-time doctors, a nutritionist, and 3 lab technicians. Client referrals to more complex medical care complement Humsafar's in-house clinical services. In 1999, Humsafar was accredited as a VCCTC for Mumbai, and it has subsequently built its clinical component alongside its prevention and support activities integrating and strengthening services.