Sunday Times 2
The Grassrooted Trust: Empowering people living with HIV
View(s):The Grassrooted Trust was set up to work on issues related to sexual and reproductive health and rights, with a focus on supporting people living with HIV. In fact, the empowerment of this community, along with other communities vulnerable to HIV infection, has been their main focus.
Today, globally, living with HIV is not just possible, it is the reality. The government of Sri Lanka through the Ministry of Health has long provided those who have HIV with life saving antiretroviral treatment. The Ministry of Health (National STD and AIDS Control Programme – NSACP) and Ministry of Labour and Labour Relations have also championed the National HIV Policy and the National HIV Policy in the World of Work respectively thereby ensuring a policy framework to protect the rights of people living with HIV in Sri Lanka, and those most vulnerable to infection.
With a relatively manageable number of people infected with the virus in Sri Lanka (1896 registered cases at the end of the 2nd Quarter 2014 with an overall estimate of 3000 – NSACP) together with the government and its civil society partners, Grassrooted is committed to ensuring that people living with HIV become real partners in prevention, and also facilitate a process of real empowerment that allows people to return to work and become contributing citizens. Their hope is to end what they call a “hand-out culture” that makes people dependent on the system. Director of The Grassrooted Trust, Paba Deshapriya says, “We have a National Policy that recognises the right and ability of people living with HIV to work. We need to encourage them to do this, and also help by reducing stigma and discrimination that is often the result of ignorance. People are still nervous about modes of transmission.”
Grassrooted, in partnership with Chibby’s Friends, an organisation that supports families with HIV, is also in the process of developing a comprehensive interactive online information gateway in Sinhala and Tamil to support government and civil society efforts in reducing the HIV burden in Sri Lanka. The launch date is December 2015.
Grassrooted has also set up businesses, which include Grassrooted Merchandise, their popular WHO MADE THIS? Mugs and THINK postcards after debuting at Good Market earlier this year, are now also available at Barefoot and selected hotels and are proving popular gifts with tourists. The Grassrooted clothing line which was launched in March this year at Good Market is also set to hit selected stores in time for Christmas. All the merchandise is also available online @ grassrooted.net/store. The team believes in generating their own funds, rather than being dependent on donors and funders for sustainability. “The hope is to lead by example when asking others to turn away from the hand-out culture” says Paba
The fast becoming popular food business, Margie’s Kitchen is another initiative that helps fund their work, and also enables them to employ competent people on the margins, so that they have opportunities to sustain themselves. Grassrooted also helps find other avenues of suitable employment for those who need it most, and welcome partners to achieve this goal.
Grassrooted’s engagement with gender-based violence and one of its key manifestations, intimate partner violence, recognises the need for a holistic approach to the issues they work on. “A wider focus that includes gender and issues related to sexual and reproductive health, including the ready access to accurate and comprehensive and age-appropriate information, is so important if we’re to ultimately help people understand concepts like respect and human dignity. The stigma that people living with HIV face in this country will not dissipate without a wider discussion of how we treat each other” explains Hans Billimoria, Director, The Grassrooted Trust.
The Grassrooted Trust, since 2011 has performed V Day in Sri Lanka, and after the initial production using international stories curated by Eve Ensler, Grassrooted has sourced, written and performed stories that are local, ensuring that audiences understand the very real presence of gender-based violence in Sri Lanka
In 2015 The Grassrooted Trust in partnership with the PR Company Uber Minds, and Women In Need, Sri Lanka’s leading non-governmental agency working with survivors of violence are putting together a theatre awareness initiative, V Day 2015: Our Stories, which will include performances based on writings (Tamil, Sinhala and English) from across Sri Lanka on gender-based violence.
“Everyone may not have HIV, but as the stories we’ve collected for V Day 2015 already show, almost everyone has experienced some form of gender-based violence and sexual harassment” says Hans.
The Trust will be accepting submissions till December 15 and selected works will be performed in March 2015 to commemorate International Womens Day. For more information about The Grassrooted Trust visit http://www.sundaytimes.lk/141130/