IMPHAL, October 15: The Care and Support Centre, Thoubal and Manipur Network of Positive People+ Thoubal in its joint meeting held yesterday which was attended by NGOs, CBOs, legal experts, meira paibis and youth club leaders has formed a Discrimination Response Team to help People Living with HIV (PLHIV).
In his keynote address, Ch Basanta Singh, DPC, CSC, Thoubal stated that during the last two decades, the PLHIV community members are frequently marginalized from society due to stigma and discrimination which negatively create impact on their mental health and emotional well-being adding that there are very strong evidences of discrimination as evident by lack of relevant laws, violation of fundamental rights, self-stigmatization, etc.
He further said that in order to address discrimination, the VIHAAN Project has established a community led ‘Discrimination Response System’ through DLN and NGO partners in which the main objectives of the DRS is to enable PLHIV to understand different facets of discrimination and creating perceptions through VIHAAN programme and other activities that would lead to create effective mechanisms of sustained DRS and decrease in the number of cases.
The Discrimination Response Team (24×7) comprises of one FSW, MSM, IDUs, legal expert, meira paibi leader, NGO chief functionary, local youth club leader, PC, PD and outreach workers of the Care and Support Centre, Thoubal, he informed.
The programme chaired by Ak Memcha Leima, president of Kangleipak Women Welfare Association was also attended by M Ratan Singh, PM MNP+ Imphal; N Ranjit Singh, GIPA Coordinator, MACS and M Swami Singh, Advocate as special guests.