Launching: LGBT India Foundation

Image by Marco Bellucci via Flickr   By Nitin Rao

Over 30 million of our fellow Indian citizens identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, and deserve greater equality at colleges, in the workplace and society at large. By kick-starting a visible and mainstream conversation, we can work with you to get there.

As our first project, in Winter 2010, we will be building a much needed online resource to answer the "basics" on LGBT issues, and to bring gay-straight citizens together in one progressive community. For a country with the largest young LGBT population in the world, it shocks us that this doesn't quite exist as it should.

In 2011, we will accelerate work on two more initiatives:

• Supporting large companies in creating "safe spaces" at the workspace for LGBT employees to confidentially connect with resources and mentors. Our initial partners will be companies in the technology, finance and consulting sectors, that already have LGBT initiatives outside of India
• Supporting inspiring young leaders at Indian colleges launching gay-straight student clubs, by providing them with funding, opportunities to connect at a conference, and mentorship.

We are deeply grateful to TED for their support and inspiration, and will be sharing updates at http://www.lgbtindia.org/. Please feel free to send me a message over LinkedIn if you would like to get involved.