United Way of Bengaluru strongly believes in creating sustainable communities. In looking at long-term development, it is crucial that we build skilled people who can take care of themselves in the long run. Keeping this in mind, we realized the need to look at a much-ignored section of the society, the transgender community. Stigma towards transgender community still survive, even more strongly in rural regions. Already strife with superstitions and backward thinking, taboos are more difficult to break when there is lack of education.
Most of the times, given the social stigma, the transgender community finds it difficult to find employment. So, we decided to build sustainable employment to doubly marginalized rural transgender community through dairy farming. On one hand, they are socially stigmatized and on the other, chances to make a living for themselves are fewer in rural areas where ignorance is higher when it comes to being gender sensitive.
As part of the program, we gave them a new lease on life by providing them with dairy farming training and equipment, 2 cows and a buffalo for the farm’s setting up. Since milking machines were given to them as dairy farm equipment, there was a necessity to train them in dairy farming, naturally.
So, we trained them in dairy farming, built a cow shed, provided them with milk cans, animal health check-ups, medicines, fans inside the cow shed, cow food and cow shed mats.
This entire process reverses urbanization! It will not only ease the weight of population concentrated in urban cities by slowing down people from rushing to cities for employment but also strengthen the rural regions economically.