Transgenders rush to help migrants in Ulhasnagar

Migrants leave for their hometown Gorakhpur from Lokmanya Tilak Terminus on Friday. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

Among the many trains full of migrants leaving the city is one that leaves from Ulhasnagar to Jharkhand. This one, however, is special owing to the support it has from the local transgender community. A group of transgenders has taken the responsibility to do all the groundwork for this one.

They gathered data on migrants from different parts of Ulhasnagar and nearby areas, made a list, aided their medical check-ups and provided food for their journey home.

Around 12 transgenders are working as volunteers under the guidelines of Global Rights Foundation, an NGO working for the welfare of transgenders and Mashal, another NGO that helps migrant labourers. The group collated data of thousands of migrant labourers.

It all started when Mashal and Global Rights Foundation got together to help transgenders in Ulhasnagar who were themselves in trouble due to the lockdown. The two organisations provided food to the transgenders, who in turn came forward to help migrant labourers working in handloom and embroidery factories in Ulhasnagar.

Dr Yoga S Nambiar, founder, Global Rights Foundation said day that with Mashal, they first gave grocery kits. "We also began a community kitchen. That's when we began getting requests of facilitating the journeys back home," Dr Nambiar said. Around 15,000 migrant labourers stranded in Ulhasnagar were reached by Global Rights Foundation through three community kitchens.

'Authorities supportive'
"Government has been of great help. It also wouldn't have been possible without the data of migrants which the group of transgenders got us. Making a list of labourers with their ID numbers, destinations, medical check-up clearances and other documents was taken care of by the group," Sharad Mahajan, founder member of Mashal said.

15,000
No. of migrants stranded in Ulhasnagar

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