IDAHOT Events 2015: India

In India, the youth group of the Humsafar Trust- Yaariyan prepared a Flashmob and had a performance of the play ‘Ek Madhav Baug’ at a mainstream venue while Gaysi Family called for funding to support local LGBTQ work. And in Mumbai, a video showed homosexual and straight students hugging against Homophobia.

[box type=”note” ]We are still busy collecting information on this year’s IDAHOT activities and are waiting to hear back from activists and event organisers. If you have information to share with us, please write us at contact@dayagainsthomophobia.org[/box]
The Humasafar Trust (HST) are a community based group of self-identified gay men, MSM, transgender, Hijras and LBT individuals based in Mumbai. This year the group worked together with their youth initiative, Yaariyan, to create special events  which looked at some of the issues facing young LGBTI people.
Members of the group performed the play ‘Jiyo Aur Jeene do’ in four different locations on the street.

Ahead of IDAHOT, Yaariyan launched an online campaign, a ‘Say it with a Smash’ contest. They asked their followers to:

Download the ‘Dubsmash’ app, find a clip that says exactly what you want to say to the homophobes/transphobes (We’d suggest Fuck you by Lily Allen, but let’s get more creative).
Upload your dubsmash to your Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram account and mark our IDs on it.
The coolest dubsmashers will win free passes to KASHISH 2015, south Asia’s biggest queer film festival. We will also release a video with all the cool videos we get tagged on.

Find out more about the organisers here.
You can also watch a flashmob held by the group earlier this year here. As well as one of their 2014 efforts here.

Techfest at IIT Bombay, in collaboration with Saathi IIT (an LGBTQ resource group) released a YouTube video titled ‘A hesitant hug’ in which heterosexual students hug their homosexual peers to tell them that they accept them the way they are.
Aaditya Joshi, the director of the video, said that the concept was to ‘combat homophobia with a hug’. “The concept was simple,” he said. “Straight people hug their queer colleagues and are okay with it. It was our way to tell people in non-IIT colleges to respect the queer people they may have with them. Techfest is Asia’s largest science and technology festival, and for the first time, Saathi-IIT has got such a huge support,” he added.
Find the source here.

The team at Gaysi Family used the occasion of IDAHOT to help VIDYA – Vidya Integrated Development for Youth and Adults, a Mumbai based NGO to raise monetary funds for their cause. They managed to raise some funds and posted:

Update : Happy to announce, we managed to raise Rs.5000 from our‪#‎IDAHOT‬ campaign on social media platforms.

They call for participation was as followed: