Meet Bobby - A Friendly Rectal Microbicide Advocate from India

Check out this interesting min-bio of Bobby Ramakant, the latest in  IRMA's "Meet a Friendly Rectal Microbicide Advocate" series on the IRMA website here.  Bobby is one of six new bios just posted two days ago, including individuals from Kenya, Thailand, the UK, the US and Argentina.  Each will be featured on the blog, and you can read all of them here right now.



Bobby Ramakant
Lucknow, India

"Rectal microbicide research and advocacy for HIV prevention options for those practicing anal sex is not just about product advocacy but about giving a right to health and a right to choice especially to those receptive partners (women and men) of anal sex who are currently unable to use existing HIV prevention options."

Bobby is an IRMA advocate, a health activist and a brain tumor survivor who graduated in science and communications and then later went on to journalism. He currently works with Citizen News Service. He passionately believes that unless voices and perspectives of affected communities are heard and documented in the main discourses on HIV, the desired change will not come. Bobby believes that true knowledge lies with the people who are dealing with these issues on a daily basis.

His biggest influence has been Dr. Sandeep Pandey who is a noted Gandhian activist. Dr. Sandeep Pandey has always believed in Bobby and encourages him by saying, "that if we truly believe in our deepest convictions and act upon it, resources and means to achieve the goals will follow." Mahatma Gandhi is another inspiration because of the shared desire for a just social order. He also loves listening to Indian and English music and is a big foodie.

Bobby got involved with IRMA in 2006, when Naz Foundation International team members organized an informational meeting about rectal microbicides. Although rectal microbicides were not a novel concept to him, they came up very strongly during INN Meetings (Indian Network of NGOs on HIV/AIDS) held in Tamil Nadu and Utter Pradesh, India. In 2008, as rectal microbicides were growing in stature, Bobby and his team raised this issue in the "Microbicides Experts Group" of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in junction with the Microbicides Society of India. From here Bobby and his colleagues managed to secure and mandate some resources for basic science research on rectal microbicides in India.

Bobby believes that rectal microbicides are particularly important because, if proven safe and effective for HIV prevention, receptive male and female partners in anal sex will have an HIV prevention option that they can control. He thinks this is predominantly important for those who are unable to negotiate safer sex with condoms or use other currently existing HIV prevention options. If rectal microbicides are developed as a lubricant, that might be quite acceptable because many people who practice anal sex commonly use some kind of lubricant already.

His advice for IRMA is to have in-country members of IRMA who can take leadership to organize and develop country-driven advocacy programs to support IRMA's mission.

Bobby is involved in preparing for the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012). He and fellow staffers from CNS will be working with IRMA to amplify rectal microbicide research and advocacy and related issues at AIDS 2012. He encourages all to stay connected and stay tuned.

Thanks Bobby for all that you do!

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*Join IRMA's robust, highly-active. moderated, global listserv addressing rectal microbicide research and advocacy as well as other interesting new HIV prevention technologies by contacting us at rectalmicro@gmail.com. Joining our listserv automatically makes you a member of IRMA - a network of more than 1,100 advocates, scientists, policy makers and funders from all over the world.

*Please look for us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/InternationalRectalMicrobicideAdvocates, and you can follow us on Twitter: @rectalmicro.

*Also, please note that shared news items from other sources posted on this blog do not necessarily mean IRMA has taken any position on the article's content.
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Delhi high court all set to rule on same-sex activity petition

Its verdict will be the first delivered by an Indian court on a 19th century law that treats homosexual activity as a criminal offence

Excerpt:

“It was right for those in the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights movement to have reposed faith in the judiciary instead of asking the political class for change,” said New Delhi-based gay rights activist and lawyer Aditya Bondyopadhyay.

“The reaction of the court so far has been positive, non-prejudiced and scientific while the government has taken an unscientific, moralistic and homophobic view,” added Bondyopadhyay.

Read the whole article here.

IRMA's Next Global Teleconference

You are invited to join IRMA for:

What’s in a name?
Working with male-male sexualities, masculinities
and genders in South Asia

Wednesday, October 29, 2008


with Shivananda Khan
Chief Executive, Naz Foundation International

Location/Time:
Kuala Lumpur - 10:00 PM
New Delhi, Lucknow - 7:30 PM
Kampala - 4:00 PM
Brussels - 3:00 PM
UTC (GMT) - 2:00 PM
Chicago, Lima - 9:00 AM
Los Angeles, Seattle - 7:00 AM

You must RSVP for this call. Please RSVP by e-mailing Liudmyla Dmytriieva.
We will send out dial-in instructions to all RSVPs in advance of the call. Many thanks to IRMA Secretariat AIDS Foundation of Chicago for providing resources for this call.

Click here for the presentation. Click here for the same presentation with explanatory notes. Both are in PDF format.

Description:
Naz Foundation International provides technical support and assistance to low income “MSM” groups, networks and collectivities in the South Asia region to enable them to develop their own self-help organising around HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services.

The socio-cultural frameworks of male-male sexualities in this region and amongst low income populations are primarily based on gender and penetrative performance rather than sexual orientation and a “gay” identity. That is, the penetrating partner perceives himself as a ‘normative’ man, while the person he is penetrating is perceived as a “not-man”. This gendered system is also often internalised by the penetrated partner. In this we have a trinary system of gender: man, ‘not-man’ and woman. Those that fall into the category of ‘not-man’ are so called “beardless youth” primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and feminised males who identify with their feminisation.Further in this region, religion (particularly Islam) and socially compulsory marriage are major factors in the dynamics, risks and vulnerabilities of self-identified MSM and their partners.

Another point to recognise is that for many males/men in the region, male-to-male sex is not defined as sex, but as “mischief”. Sex is only vaginal sex.Stigma, discrimination and violence then is directed as those feminised males, not so much because of their sexual practices, but because of their femininity. At the same time sexual debut of feminised males tends towards an earlier than masculine males.

There are emerging networks of gay-identified men (in the Western sense), but these are primarily in major urban areas among English speaking, middle class populations, and are a minority amongst the diversity of male-to-male sexualities in the region. Developing appropriate HIV services then is dependent on a better understanding of male-male sexualities based on gender performance and age structure, and a recognition that their partners tend to be men from the general male population.

Read "Everybody knows, but nobody knows - A review of current literature on HIV and male-male sexualities, behaviours and sexual exploitation in Afghanistan," by Shivananda Khan, released September 2008.

For more info on Naz Foundation International, please visit their website.

NFI, A LIFELINE FOR THOUSANDS, NEEDS URGENT ASSISTANCE TO CONTINUE ITS CRITICAL MSM/HIV WORK IN SOUTH ASIA AND BEYOND

"The work we do has not placed high on a list of national health priorities... but that is changing – progress is being made as politicians and health authorities are acknowledging the crucial role MSM HIV programmes play in tackling the region’s AIDS challenge."

Naz Foundation International, the renowned MSM and HIV organization that is literally at the frontline of the effort to reduce the impact of AIDS among these highly vulnerable populations in the countries of South Asia, urgently requires financial assistance to continue key activities in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and elsewhere.

“It’s an ironic situation,” says Shivananda Khan, who founded NFI in 1996. “Even as we’re awaiting decisions on significant funding from international agencies for fiscal year 2009-2010 and beyond, funding that we are hopeful of securing, we need immediate short-term assistance to meet an array of challenges that have converged upon us in just the past few months. Basically, if we can’t get this help very, very shortly, we are at risk of needing to drastically reduce our efforts, ending the development of scaling up coverage of HIV prevention and programmes and outreach activities across the region that so many depend upon.”

For a small (but highly productive) agency, these recent challenges have significant impact, and include changes in policy direction of many bilateral and multilateral donors that have reduced opportunities to fund regional and technical assistance opportunities; decentralization by so many donors which makes it extremely complicated to have to go country by country and “sell” regionality; and despite the evidence, MSM and HIV is still low on priority lists of some donors, making it even more difficult to secure funding; the long time frame to develop funding proposals, submit them and have them accepted.

“This crunch couldn’t have come at a worse time,” notes Khan. “Over the past several years, we’ve been widely recognized for having helped establish some 70 MSM community-based organisations across South Asia, and for having trained several thousand MSM in a self-help and capacity building organisational framework. We’re being asked to replicate these efforts in country after country, working with governments and other stakeholders. It’s an honour to do this work, and we’ve always been responsible stewards of our modest resources, but HIV/AIDS funding is being spread so thin these days that we, like other NGOs, are increasingly challenged to make ends meet.”

Moreover, NFI operates in countries whose governments are only just beginning to tackle MSM HIV issues. “The work we do has not placed high on a list of national health priorities, at least so far”, continues Khan. “But that is changing – progress is being made as politicians and health authorities are acknowledging the crucial role MSM HIV programmes play in tackling the region’s AIDS challenge. It would be a shame to lose NFI’s services, expertise and accumulated knowledge at such an important time.”

Registered in the UK and with its regional programme office in India, Naz Foundation International addresses MSM HIV issues through enabling new MSM community organisations to be developed in order that more MSM at risk can receive prevention, treatment, care and support services across the South Asia region, while continued support to these organisations through mentoring, technical and institutional assistance

“Our mission is to empower socially excluded and disadvantaged males to secure for themselves social justice, equity, health and well being through technical, institutional and where possible, financial support,” says Khan, “with a primary focus on those who are particularly vulnerable and marginalised, such as low-income feminised and transgendered MSM.”

NFI’s activities include:

•Supporting low-income MSM collectives, groups and networks through technical, financial and institutional support to develop and deliver self-help sexual health programmes addressing their needs.

•Working with governments on drafting and implementing MSM HIV programmes and policy frameworks.

•Strongly advocating on social justice and human rights concerns of MSM in the various countries of South Asia and internationally

•Serving as a founding member of the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM) and working with a range of NGOs, INGOs, UN agencies, UNAIDS, bilateral and multilateral donors regarding scaling up the response to HIV among MSM across South Asia, as well as the rest of Asia and the Pacific.

•Conducting research and critical analyses that highlight the issues and problems that marginalised and socially excluded MSM face; identifying solutions and pro-actively promoting the resultant findings; as well as understanding the context of masculinities and sexualities which lead to more effective and sustainable sexual health promotion strategies for MSM.

You can learn more about NFI’s work by going to www.nfi.net

To respond to NFI’s appeal and to contact Shivananda Khan and his colleagues, you can write to shiv@nfi.net

Or write to:
Shivananda Khan
Naz Foundation International
Palingswick House,
241 King Street, London W6 9LP, UK

Or

NFI Regional Office
9 Gulzar Colony, New Berry Lane
Lucknow, 226001, India

Or go to the NFI website and click on the donation button.

Related:
Shivananda Khan is the featured presenter on IRMA's next global teleconference - "What’s in a name? Working with male-male sexualities, masculinities and genders in South Asia" on Wednesday, October 29, 2008. Click here to learn more and to RSVP.

And check out this IRMA blog post on NFI's recent work - Everybody knows, but nobody knows

Everybody knows, but nobody knows

Read "Everybody knows, but nobody knows - A review of current literature on HIV and male-male sexualities, behaviours and sexual exploitation in Afghanistan," by Shivananda Khan, released September 2008.

For more info on Naz Foundation International, please visit their website.

RELATED:

You are invited to join IRMA for a Global Teleconference:

What’s in a name? Working with male-male sexualities,
masculinities and genders in South Asia

Wednesday, October 29, 2008


with Shivananda Khan
Chief Executive, Naz Foundation International

Location/Time:
Kuala Lumpur - 10:00 PM
New Delhi, Lucknow - 7:30 PM
Kampala - 4:00 PM
Brussels - 3:00 PM
UTC (GMT) - 2:00 PM
Chicago, Lima - 9:00 AM
Los Angeles, Seattle - 7:00 AM

You must RSVP for this call. Please RSVP by e-mailing Liudmyla Dmytriieva.

We will send out dial-in instructions to all RSVPs in advance of the call.

Many thanks to IRMA Secretariat AIDS Foundation of Chicago for providing resources for this call.