2012
GO VISIBLE AWARD
On 16th December 2012, Sappho for Equality received the GO Visible (Get Organized and Visible) Award from President Ms Ulrike Lunacek of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on LGBT Rights. The Go Visible Award is an international award that started in 2008. It recognizes an organization or individual for promoting LGBTI rights, empowering LGBTI people, and supporting cooperation and alliances with other organizations in hostile places. The award-giving ceremony took place on the closing day of the 26th ILGA World Conference in Stockholm. Sappho for Equality took home the award and it was received by Sutanuka Bhattacharya. SFE was chosen out of 24 applicants for consistently advocating for the rights of lesbians, bisexual women, and FTM transpeople. President Lunacek also appreciated our initiative for conducting sensitizing workshops with police and doctors.
'TOGETHER WE ARE' CAMPAIGN WITH DOCTORS
Together We Are’ is a series of workshops through which Sappho For Equality (SFE) approaches different important players of the society like the Police, Administration, Medical fraternity, Lawyers, Academicians, Student population, Rights-Based NGOs and families of persons with non-normative gender-sexual identities. Workshops are conducted with various institutions to address and sensitize them about non-normative gender-sexual identities and lived experiences.
The ‘Together We Are’ series worked on creating a dialogue that would open up avenues of interaction and exchange, that helped create awareness and facilitated sensitization, along with forming networks and orienting the law enforcement agencies. The first workshop with the medical health professionals started in 2012.
RAINBOW CARNIVAL
Rainbow Carnival, the first of its kind in Eastern India, started in 9th December 2012. It was conceptualized with the aim to spread awareness and information on LGBTQ issues in a carnivalesque fashion and spirit. The second Rainbow Carnival took place on 8th December 2013 at a well known cultural spot in Kolkata - Rabindra Sadan Ground. The third carnival was celebrated just three days before The International Human Rights Day on 10th December 2014.
As it has been named, this is a ‘MELA’/ fair organized in the heart of Kolkata, with all the vigor, splendor and grandiosity of any other fair. The special attraction of the carnival is its performances, decoration, music, sports, food and entertainment. All these arrangements were made for everyone to mingle, share spaces and have fun while celebrating the diverse gender-sexuality expressions through sports and cultural events, in context to forming informal dialogues with the common people through the celebration. It also functioned as a platform for queer artists and creators to come together and share their works.
After three consecutive successful years, the carnival was handed over to the LGBTQIA+ community and we have decided to jointly work with other groups to organize the carnival for the upcoming years.
