Prayas

With the objective to increase awareness and access to Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for transgender and hijra communities as a service within combination prevention, Prayas(meaning attempt) project was implemented in November 2016 till December 2018. The project is supported by ViiV Health Care Foundation and implemented in six states with local partners – Shaan Foundation in Punjab, Lakshya Trust in Gujarat, Alliance Hyderabad in Telangana, Sangama in Karnataka, Amitie Trust in West Bengal and Basera Samaji Sansthanin Delhi.

The project also emphasizes on building the capacities of TGH community to advocate for PrEP as part of the service delivery package of HIV prevention programme of the government of India. To accomplish this, the project made efforts to influence the government to develop and formulate policies to adopt the WHO recommendation of PrEP in the context of Test and Treat to reach the global goal of 90-90-90.

Project Highlights

• 12 ‘PrEP Champions’ across six states continue to mobilise and educate the communities through community meetings, group meetings and sharing knowledge of PrEP.
• Prayas successfully created the only evidence available to understand the perspective of the transgender community about the use of PrEP in India. The baseline and end-line study capture the perspectives of transgender women on PrEP as well as that of health care providers and stakeholders.

Project Results (April 2018 to March 2019)

• 5,513 TGH population engaged in the awareness activities. 92% of the target population reached.
• 12 Posters were developed through community consultative processes and shared on social media to reach a wider audience.