LAHORE:
While educational opportunities have been few and far between for gender minorities in Pakistan, a local NGO has stepped in to create an international platform for the development of the country’s transgender people. The Gender Guardian (TGG), a non-governmental organization working to train and educate transgender people in Pakistan, has partnered with various foreign NGOs to allow transgender citizens to participate in a month-long training program in four different countries.
Transwoman Sania Abbasi, who is a make-up artist and has been associated with TGG as a teacher for the past several months, is among the many aspirants for the educational grant. If selected for the coveted programme, Ms Abbasi says it will bring her immense pride to be one of Pakistan’s first transgender people sent abroad to train in social work and welfare. “This is a wonderful opportunity for us to be able to represent our country on an international platform and I have worked tirelessly to achieve my goals. I can’t wait to work with international NGOs. I would like learn from them and also share my personal experiences with the world.”
According to the head of The Gender Guardian (TGG), Asif Shehzad, his organization is committed to providing equal opportunities for transgender people through the provision of free vocational training and formal education. “We have taught and trained dozens of transgenders in various skills such as driving, cooking, makeup, sewing and so on over the past few years. But through this scholarship, the selected participants will be able to use share their skills and talent with the world and for the first time have access to international cultural exchange and training,” Shehzad also told about the scholarship program that The Gender Guardian has been working on a digital database of transgender people registered with. TGG as well as other people who donate to the organization “So far we have cooperated with NGOs working in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Using our database, we will select candidates every six months to be sent to these four countries for a month-long training, while people from the same four countries will also have the opportunity to come and train in Pakistan. Our selected candidates will work with their host country’s NGOs and represent Pakistan at the international level,” he explained.
Sania Abbasi believes that this scholarship will allow the people of the world to see the skills and talents of Pakistan’s transgender person, who often tend to be stereotyped as people confined to sex work. “As a gender minority, we have few resources to take a higher education or go abroad, which is why we have very limited opportunities for work. But this scholarship gives transgenders an opportunity to showcase their abilities and break the stereotypes associated with them,” she asserted.
Published in The Express Pakinomist, June 28th2020.
