International Women's Health Coalition - Learn more about SANGRAM

Learn more about SANGRAM

Attendees leave a meeting of SANGRAM's District Campaign.

SANGRAM is a nationally and internationally rights-based organization working towards halting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India through assisting sex workers, rural women and girls, women widowed by HIV/AIDS and other marginalized groups, to mobilize and secure their rights in Maharashtra state. SANGRAM is one of the few community-led programs that effectively address the multiple vulnerabilities of communities within the context of the epidemic.

IWHC has supported SANGRAM since 2006 to serve as the Advocacy secretariat of Action Plus, a national alliance of 12 HIV/AIDS, feminist, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, human rights and advocacy organizations, who fight to make India’s HIV/AIDS policy more responsive to the needs of its population. SANGRAM workers, made up of those who are most vulnerable to HIV, ensure that people living with AIDS (PLWA), especially women, can exercise their rights and access their entitlements under the public system, that the broader community has access to information that helps prevent HIV/ AIDS and that various other groups are engaged in ending discrimination against PLWA.

SANGRAM’s policy advocacy is unique in that they are grounded in a local, rural program that works directly with the excluded community members. This position has led SANGRAM to have a special relationship with the National AIDS Control Organization, the Maharashtra State Control Organization and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. These organizations recognize that SANGRAM challenges aspects of their programs that are not meeting community needs. At the same time, they respect SANGRAM’s expertise on how to protect human rights and increase access to HIV programs and other entitlements by excluded groups.

On a trip to India in September 2009, International Women's Health Coalition staff collaborated with SANGRAM and local sex worker advocates to produce this short documentary about sex worker organizing in India.