India is about to get its first radio taxi service — Wings of Rainbow — run solely by the LGBT community.
An initiative, taken up jointly by Wings Travels and Humsafar Trust, will see taxis being chauffeured by members of the LGBT community. Inaugurated on January 20, the service is expected to be fully operational by 2017.
During the inauguration, five members of Humsafar Trust, including three gay men and two transgenders, signed up to become the first group of LGBT cab drivers. The volunteers will now have to undergo six months of extensive training, involving improving both their driving and soft skills, after which they will be provided with their certified driving licenses.
“We are looking for drivers with good people skills and integrity. We approached Humsafar with the hope of finding such drivers. We want to ensure that the LGBT community in India enjoys the same rights and livelihood opportunities in India as their counterparts in the West,” said Arun Kharat, founder of Wings Travels.
#lovewins #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtcouples #lgbtpride #lgbtpage #lgbtlove #lgbtflag
A photo posted by @lovewinsdating on
Jan 20, 2016 at 10:56pm PST
The programme comes not long after the ground-breaking judgment in the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) vs Union of India & Ors case, in which the Supreme Court recognized the constitutional rights and freedom of the transgender people, including those who choose to identify themselves as the third gender and those who identify in a gender category opposite to their biological sex.
“After the NALSA judgment, several business houses have approached us to offer employment to the transgender and sexual minority community,” stated Pallav Patnakar, Director of Programs for Humsafar Trust.
Patnakar further added that they hope to encourage more members of the transgender community to come forward to take advantage of the programme. “We want to help them explore avenues that go beyond the stereotypical – of fashion, beauty and entertainment,” he said.
Courtesy: http://mashable.com/
“We were at first a bit awkward about dressing up in trousers and shirts. But when we were told that we could drive around formally draped in a sari, we were comfortable,” said one of the first five volunteers. “Only after our livelihood issues are resolved can our community come out of the poor condition that we are trapped in.”
The Humsafar Trust is an LGBT community organization and has been functioning in Mumbai since 1994. Wings Travels, which was also founded the same year, is a car rental company and currently operates taxis in nine cities, including Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, and Chandigarh.
The company will be responsible for all the cabs running under this programme and it hopes to expand its fleet further with the joining of more LGBT members.
“While the first five are trained, we will continue enrolling more people from the LGBT community until we have up to 1,500 people from across all nine cities,” stated Wings Travels founder Arun Kharat. “We want them to eventually become entrepreneurs and own their vehicles,” he added.
This revolutionary programme will give the LGBT members of our country a well-deserved chance to lead dignified lives like regular citizens.
Read Also: An-all LGBT high school to open in America
Courtesy: http://indianexpress.com/
The post India’s 1st LGBT cab service to launch soon appeared first on .