Queer Youth Leadership Course

Why do some people succeed and some do not? Why are some people able to cope with their challenges while some cannot? Why are some people able to lead a life of dignity and fulfilment and some find themselves in the margins of our societies? The answers to these questions are multifaceted and complex.

Individual resilience and choices in thoughts and actions are major building blocks in our efforts to lead satisfying and productive lives. They aren’t innate and require a great degree of learning and nurturing. Though leadership programs in formal education settings and beyond help with this, they have traditionally excluded and ignored queer youth and their perspectives, limiting their extraordinary potential.

Additionally, today’s India lacks openly queer or trans leadership and representation to set examples and provide guidance to queer youth. In fact, queer youth often use their talents to fight stigma, prejudice, homophobia and transphobia in their communities. The result is that much of India’s queer youth are left with a yearning to develop skills to deal with a society and corporate world that is unaccepting of them, but also a need to deal with the unique complications within their own lives.

The history of the queer community has been marked by struggles; social ostracization, bullying in educational institutions which increases dropout rates and cognitive development, no inclusive policies in workspaces, discrimination in formal spaces thus alienating them further.

KSF Fellowship programme in association with Toronto Mindfulness Centre, provides transformational support of a global and national network of Queer visionaries – scientists, artists, activists, entrepreneurs, doctors, journalists and inventors – who collaborate across disciplines to create positive change around the world for the LGBTQ+ individuals.

With the advent of the 377 verdict, the legality has changed and today it is imperative to start and follow up on inclusive conversations. Few action pointers are:

• The need for today is representation and access to equal opportunities in all spaces, this means empowering the community by creating livelihood opportunities by education, skill development, and mentorship.
• Also, an urgent priority is empowering queer people in rural areas where conversations are almost negligible, and their pronounced hardships require immediate intervention.
• There is also an urgent need to work on providing mental health support to people from the community where depression and suicide rates are very high due to the countless social pressure they face on an everyday basic.

The KSF Fellowship will provide mentorship to emerging queer aspirants, in order to realize their many potentials and break out of the many social obstacles. The mentors will be selected queer leaders who have empowered themselves to stand tall in their respective formal sectors.

Participants after the successful completion of the course will receive a Certificate of Fellowship from Keshav Suri Foundation. They would officially be referred to as the KSF Fellows. So many from the community even lack the fundamentals of profession and that’s the consistent aim of the fellowship which is to embrace, empower and mainstream youth from the community and become social leaders. The goal is to build social leaders from different walks of life, who in turn transform into peer leaders for their respective locations and continue the chain of support and empowerment.