Transgender activist Shahzadi Rai took to social media to announce that she was collaborating with Sindh Education Minister Sardar Shah to work on the first ever transgender inclusive education policy, which will allow more members of the khwaja sira community to enroll into schools and continue to pursue higher education through scholarship programs set up by universities.
Speaking to The Current, Rai, who is working as a Violence Case Manager for Gender Alliance Initiative, spoke about the importance of the policy, which is a step forward in helping transgender individuals pursue their academic dreams and help in empowering their community:
“Through this policy, we aim to help members of the Khwaja Sira community pursue higher education, especially those who can read and write but could not study in schools. When we had our meeting to discuss this policy, one of the first things we talked about was setting up a scholarship program for the transgender community in universities. So that more transgender people can study ahead.”
We also talked about how this policy will help in setting up more safe and inclusive environments for transgender individuals:
“We had also discussed setting up more safer environments within schools for transgender people. We are forming up a draft of the things we want. Although it won’t be a part of this policy that we are drafting, but ahead in the future we will start including books with chapters that will discuss the history of the transgender community.
In this policy, we have ensured that it is strictly forbidden that no teacher can misbehave with a transgender student. Our biggest concern is to ensure that teacher’s are trans-friendly.”
Sindh Education Minister Sardar Shah was seen speaking on the importance of the education policy at the Sindh Assembly, highlighting the importance of such a step which will help members of the transgender community become equal members of our society by providing them fair education policies.
