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The Red Ribbon Award is given every two years to exceptional community-based organizations around the world. The winners of the most recent edition of the award were announced earlier this summer at the 21st International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa. Chitwan Sakriya Women’s Foundation in Nepal was one of the winners recognized for their inspiring work. UNAIDS spoke to Dikshya Rimal, President of Chitwan Sakriya Women’s Foundation about this huge achievement.
In the past month many countries have held marches in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people or LGBTI. While recently, the spotlight has been on transgender people, little is still known about intersex people. Earlier this year the community organization, the Blue Diamond Society organized Nepal’s first ever national level meeting on the issues and challenges faced by Intersex people. Esan Regmi, an intersex man was lead facilitator. UNAIDS… Read More
It’s a year since Nepal was hit by a devastating earthquake which killed more than 8 000 people. The lesbian gay bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community was particularly affected by the disaster. The Blue Diamond Society is dedicated to improving the sexual health, well-being and human rights of sexual minorities in Nepal and has about 218,000 members throughout the country. UNAIDS speaks to Manisha Dhakal, Executive Director of the Blue Diamond… Read More
The 60th session of the Commission on the Status of Women is taking place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 14-24 March. It is an opportunity to review progress towards gender equality and the empowerment of women. The review theme is the elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls. There are 1.7 million women living with HIV in Asia and the Pacific and gender-based… Read More
This week the 6th ILGA-Asia Regional Conference is taking place and as the largest conference of its kind on the continent it is an occasion to spotlight champions of the LGBTI movement in the region. This year Nepal has taken several historic steps in recognizing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. In September the country adopted a constitution which protects LGBTI from discrimination, violence and abuse. This followed another recent… Read More
On 20 September, Nepal took a historic step by adopting a new constitution, which protects lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people from discrimination, violence, and abuse. The country is the first in Asia and joins only a handful of other countries to include equal rights protections for LGBTI people in its national constitution. UNAIDS spoke to Sanjay Sharma, a prominent LGBTI rights activist working with the Blue Diamond Society in… Read More
“The Blue Diamond Society sprang into action a few days after the Nepal earthquake and organized a camp specifically for sexual and gender minorities.” Manisha Dhakal, Acting Executive Director of the Blue Diamond Society August 19 is World Humanitarian Day, when we honour humanitarian workers. Manisha Dhakal is a Messenger of Humanity. Read more to find out why. Please share this post with #sharehumanity hashtag. Photographs are courtesy of Paula Bronstein for International… Read More
This week the Nepal government presented its first “O” passport to a transgender woman. Manisha Dhakal, the acting Executive Director of the Blue Diamond Society writes about what this landmark move means to her and other transgender people.
UNAIDS Asia-Pacific 