About Us

Origin

Jeeva was registered on 5th November 2012 as a Trust. Its purpose is to address issues around mental health, livelihood, and representation for gender and sexual minorities in Karnataka.

 Vision

Jeeva strives to build a society where all people can live in peace and express themselves freely, irrespective of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Mission

Establish a platform for gender and sexual minorities to participate equally in society, build a sustainable livelihood, and attain quality of life, self-esteem, and dignity.  Ensure that the voices and concerns of gender and sexual minorities become part of public discourse. 

As a community-led organization, Jeeva brings together working-class gender and sexual minorities and reflects their aspirations.

Objectives

• To improve the mental health status of gender and sexual minorities by providing counseling, using ART therapy, improving the knowledge and skills of social workers, developing referrals to government services, expanding mental health care, and facilitating conversations between gender and sexual minorities and others in society.
• To improve fundamental measures of social inclusion of gender and sexual minorities in all aspects of life: by advocating for policy changes and the expansion of social welfare programs, increasing livelihood options, promoting financial planning and saving, providing entrepreneurial training and mentoring, and advocating with the government and private sector for employment opportunities.
• To amplify the voices of people who belong to gender and sexual minorities and increase their representation: by facilitating the production of print and audiovisual materials, encouraging the creation of personal blogs and websites, providing social media training, sensitizing mainstream media, and running community radio stations.
• To carry out research and organizational development to achieve the above-mentioned objectives.

Activities

• Holding regular conversations with the community, documenting their experiences, and strategically disseminating this information through magazines, radio programs, and public meetings.
  
  
• Addressing mental health issues in the community by raising awareness and providing weekly counseling services, with referrals for follow-up treatment throu
• Documenting and disseminating quality public documents on community experiences, creating awareness among the youth and decision-makers, facilitating to get government programmes and resources available for the community, making the Gander and Sexual minorities members more articulate, self-sufficient in terms of being able to access resources and support in the personal and public space, creating more sustainable linkages in the form of care and support and bring policy to support community members, the difficulty faced to institutionalize organization.
• Intervening with the judiciary on gender and Sexual minorities’ rights:

• 1. On the 36A Karnataka Police Act which gives the police an upper-hand in creating fear among transgender community, Jeeva was a co-petitioner and the high court ruled in favor.
  2. For the withdrawal of 377 Uma, founder director of Jeeva is a co-petitioner in the Supreme Court.
  3. Jeeva, in filing an application seeking horizontal reservations to be provided to transgender persons in public employment which led to Karnataka becoming the first Indian state to provide 1% horizontal reservation for transgender persons.

• Working with the government to maximize our impact, to scale up support for the community and have been successful in building a working relationship with concerned government departments.

Strategy & Guiding Principle:

Jeeva derives its strength from community support and the collective wisdom of its coalitions and network partners. We are now twelve years old and are ready to step forward more firmly. For the first time in 4 years we have a small assured support for some of our core activities and a space of our own.

Ms. Uma P

Trustee & Founder

Ms. Uma P

Trustee & Founder

Uma.P As a member of the transgender community she have nearly 24 years a grassroots legal, societal and media advocacy on human rights and social entitlements of sexual and gender minorities based in Karnataka. My work profile includes generating and editing textual and audio visual content highlighting human interest stories, socio-economic and legal challenges, stigma and discrimination of sexual and gender minorities in Karnataka.

Ms. Lakshmi. A

Chairperson

Ms. Lakshmi. A

Chairperson

Lakshmi.  A  has been a social activist working with sexuality minorities, women, children and pourakarmikas for their rights over the last 20 years. Presently she is an active member of Mahila Jagruthi Vedike, Bengaluru

Mr.Vihaan Vee

Trustee

Mr.Vihaan Vee

Trustee

Vihaan is an Ambedkarite Queer Feminist Trans-Man from India. Vihaan has been a part of anti-caste, feminist, queer and trans movements since his student days. He is a writer,researcher and campaigner.
He has done Leadership Organizing Action from Harvard Kennedy School and M.A Social Work from TISS. He is working in the development sector on the issues of gender, sexuality, caste and climate through an intersectional feminist lens.

Ms.Revathi A

Trustee

Ms.Revathi A

Trustee

A Revathi is a transgender community leader and theatre artist with a career spanning longer than a decade. She has served as the director of Sangama, an organization fighting for the rights of sexual minorities, where she has worked in crisis intervention, community mobilization, advocacy, and forging links between the transgender and Dalit and Adivasi women’s movements. Beloved as Revathi  in the trans community, she has written three books, “Our lives, our words,” an anthology of thirunangai life narratives, “The truth about me,” her autobiography, and “A life in trans activism,” an account of what it means to be a trans community activist. In 2019, her name was displayed on the wall of the Butler library in Columbia university alongside authors like Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. In the world of theatre, Revathi has had a career spanning over a decade. Her notable plays include “vellai mozhi,” a solo adaptation of her autobiography directed by A Mangai, and “Parayan maranna kathakal,” staged by the all-trans Mazhavil Dhwani theatre group, and Kattiyakkari theatre group  production by “Nooramma Biryani Darbar” a Solo play

Pushpa Achanta/ Ritash

Trustee

Pushpa Achanta/ Ritash

Trustee

Ritash (asexual & gender fluid) moved from writing software programs to people’s and places stories. They enjoy nature photography & penning verse. They’re a GSM community peer counsellor and speak 5 languages.