Kolkata Rista, a community-based organisation, has launched two 24x7 helpline numbers that promise to offer emergency response, including ambulance and medication services, to transgender people in distress across West Bengal.
The helpline numbers were launched in collaboration with the Centre for Health and Social Justice at an event at The Lalit Great Eastern Hotel, Kolkata, on July 26.
The numbers are 8334844995 and 8334844996.
Kolkata Police deputy commissioner Priyobroto Roy and DIG (correctional services department) N.K. Saha inaugurated the helpline. Sima Roy, joint director of Targeted Intervention (TI) at West Bengal State AIDS Prevention & Control Society (WBSAP&CS); Subrata Biswas, project coordinator of National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED); Kiran Mishra, team leader of Technical Support Unit (TSU) in West Bengal; Piyali Ghosh, counsellor of HIV surveillance & epidemiology; and representatives of LGBTQ+ and NGOs were present.
Kolkata Rista has been working in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh to protect the rights and welfare of various groups of non-normative sexual orientation and gender identity. It works with working-class trans-persons against exclusion and marginalisation.
Apart from that, the community-based organisation also holds regular health campaigns, supportive services and awareness programmes to reverse and eliminate HIV/AIDS in society, especially among vulnerable communities.
