Dear friends and supporters:

Swabhava is still functioning and has received more than 275 calls and requests for counselling, support services, referrals and other concerns.

During the pandemic, access to COVID vaccination for the community also became a huge hassle. Swabhava, in collaboration with the BBMP Volunteers for COVID prevention, organised two vaccination camps providing both COVISHIELD and COVAXIN vaccines to more than a hundred marginalised community members. We also conducted a follow-up second dose camp for the COVAXIN recipients.

We continue to pay our office bills and rental in order to retain the space and have more such health camps and provide access to support services. We have received several calls over the last few months that requested temporary or long-term shelter away from families that rejected  their LGBTQIA+  children or for those who have left their earlier places of residence to escape from constant harassment. We find ourselves looking for alternatives for shelters and are hoping we can help set one up in the near future.

There are increasing number of incidents of sexual violence and forced substance use among young queer people followed by severe side effects and extortion attempts that have necessitated a stronger collaboration with legal experts in Bangalore. We are keeping a close watch on these cases.

With your support, we continue to offer our services and hope to do so for many more years to come. The payments for utilities, rental and similar expenses (including during the vaccination camp) will be made online.

Thank you again for your continued belief in our work.

Dear friends,

Thank you for your continued support of Swabhava's work and encouraging us to persist even in these incredibly difficult times.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken hold of Bangalore aggressively with high rates of infections and transmission. Although recoveries from infection are on the rise, there are also too many who are losing loved ones to the contagion. Nightmares are unfolding within these families across the state owing to mismanagement and depletion of resources, alongside inadequate vaccination supply and outreach.

I write to you from the latest lockdown imposed in Bangalore owing to increasing fatalities and infections. Since our last update, the Sahaya Counselling Services have received over 130 calls from a range of LGBTQIA+ folks as well as allies and academic requests for research support. We have also received several dozen email requests for counselling assistance and referral help.

While a few calls addressed the needs of queer folk who were not out and were being forced into arranged marriages, a few were on the issues emerging from blackmail and extortion that occurred through dating apps. We are happy to note the changes brought about to a major form of extortion involving young gay men who were forced to pay to get their prospective partners out of trouble. These incidents were publicised during our queer media campaign that distributed an article that addressed the mental health issues that emerged from such experiences and how to handle them. Several young men wrote and called us to thank us on saving them from extortion since they read the article. The mental health exhaustion that these individuals faced following these events required several counselling sessions.

Swabhava continues to pay all its office expenses despite not being able to open our services for the community. We hope the situation will change following this lockdown and the vaccination outreach for 18-45 year olds. We pay our office rent, phone charges, broadband charges, electricity charges, and a salary/honorarium when funds are available.

We were able to send out a fund raiser request once again last month which provided us a much needed boost. We hope you will continue to support us and welcome long-term efforts to help our work.

Thank you,

Vinay Chandran
Executive Director and Counsellor

Dear Supporters,

Thank you so much for your continued encouragement of Swabhava and our work with LGBTQIA+ people's rights and mental health.

Since our last update, we have received over 150 calls requesting counselling or referral services and similar number of email requests. We are continuing to field calls from LGBTQIA+ folks who have been cheated of enormous sums of money, as well as dealing with increasing number of individuals who've been thrown out of their homes due to their sexuality or gender identity. It is disturbing to see this increase in rejection of children who do not conform to family expectations.

We continue to operate online offering workshops, seminars, and corporate interactions on LGBTQIA+ rights. But we have not yet been able to restore services through our offices. We hope that once the vaccinations for COVID-19 have increased and there is better handling of newer infections, we may be in a position to restart the centre and our regular community meetings.

We continue to pay the office rent, the telephone helpline bills, broadband bills to support online work, electricity supply bills, and a salary/honorarium when funds are available.

Please do spread the word about our work, we have not been able to meet our target for quite sometime but hope to do so in the next few weeks if possible.

Thank you,
Vinay Chandran
Executive DIrector