Kathmandu (Pahichan) November 27 – #PurpleMySchool  campaign is an initiative for creating safe space for LGBTI students across Asia-Pacific campaign begins in Kathmandu Nepal.

#PurpleMySchool is aimed to share students, teachers and peers and to join the #PurpleMySchool campaign aimed at creating safe spaces for LGBTI youth in educational settings throughout the Asia Pacific region.  Blue Diamond Society kick started this campaign in 26 November 2015 at Joseph English Boarding School.

The program began with introduction about participants with a short orientation session on LGBTI .We asked do you know about transgender? One of the male students replied people with half male and female genital are called transgender. Some students starting laughing whereas some remained silent.Trans Human Rights activists Bhumika Shrestha clarified the students about Transgender Male and female.

On addition to this she even shared the difference about Hijara and Transgender and shared her personal stories about facing ignorance and discrimination from her friends and teachers. She highlighted the there wasn’t an environment to talk about sexuality and personal feeling 10-12 years earlier and now the scenario is different .If you don’t speak with people or go for counseling then it might ruin yourself so if you have some issues please share it with people whom you feel comfortable.

Executive Director of Blue Diamond Society Manisha Dhakal shared “We are born this way and it is natural not due to the instruction or influence by others people.”  According to Dhakal, if there is good environment for LGBTI they can achieve and do well with education too. On her personal experience she never faced any hassle and her parents were supportive and ended with fine education. She added it may not be the same with others but the teachers should treat every student equally.

Peter Tamang gay activist of this community said they started this campaign because discrimination against the members of this community remains and there shouldn’t be any form of discrimination.  Bharat Shrestha of United Nations Development Program said there should not be discrimination on the basis of gender and conducting such event at various schools will help teachers and students to know about community.

Deputy Principal of Joseph School Deepak Adhikari was very pleased with this campaign and said it is not good that there is discrimination among LGBTI even though they are a part of our society. He added “If there are homosexual and transgender students, they will get education in a respectful way and we will treat them equally”.

#PurpleMySchool   program has began from Joseph School and will be conducted in other schools in coming days. The #PurpleMySchool campaign is being supported by the government of the Netherlands, the Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok and USAID Regional Development Mission Asia.

We can learn about this campaign visiting this websitewww.campaign.com/PurpleMySchool.