Kathmandu (Pahichan) August 2 – I, Sachin Sawardekar, representative of The Humsafar Trust in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, doing fellowship under F. K. Norway project with Blue Diamond Society in Nepal.  F.K.Norway  is a Norwegian Project, basically collaboration of three countries i.e  India (The Humsafar Trust), Nepal (Blue Diamond Society) & Bangladesh (Bandhu Social Welfare Society). Candidates from each country’s organisation have been selected for an exchange program. Exchange program is the learning and sharing of best practices from host organization and applying to home organization.

Working Experience with Blue Diamond Society:

Throughout my tenure of fellowship in BDS, Nepal, it was observed that outreach staff were still following old method of outreach i.e to go to hotspot and meet the community members, due to this old method many youth who are using gay dating app / social site to find mate for sexual pleasure are still not aware about safer sex practices, rights of being LGBTI community in case of any crisis situation. In this regard, Internet Outreach training was organized with the help of Blue Diamond Society. 15 sub office of BDS in different districts of Nepal, more than 150 numbers of outreach staff has been benefited by Internet Outreach Training program.

LGBTI community members being vulnerable and most at high risk, often experience crisis and violence in daily life. However, to aware and tackle the crisis situation, Crisis Management Training was organized along with Internet Outreach Training Program.

Learning experience with Blue Diamond Society:

Advocacy is one of the strong components of Blue Diamond Society. Advocacy strategies with stakeholders, health care providers, law enforcement agencies, political leaders and other NGO / CBO’s are most observed and learned during my tenure of fellowship. Again, Pahichan Radio program is one the advocacy tool in the BDS, Radio program has helped a lot to spread awareness, sensitize / mobilize society and to change perception towards LGBTI community in Nepal.