The YP Foundation (TYPF) in New Delhi is a youth led and run movement for social change in India. Founded in 2002, TYPF is a non-profit organization that advances young people’s human rights by building leadership and strengthening youth led initiatives and movements. By providing mentoring, financial and infrastructural support, TYPF is committed to developing the uninhibited expression of young people and enabling their ability to influence and create policies that further their rights.

Kaivalya is a Sanskrit word that means ‘knowledge, enlightenment and realization’. The project works through engaging young people in research projects, community interaction and participating in intervention based programmes to understand Gender and Sexuality, with the specific aim of providing an interactive platform to increase awareness on transgender issues. 

Project 19

Project 19 has been working for the last two years on issues relating to sexual reproductive health and rights, with young people within the age group of 18-25 years. Through Project 19, the youth of the YP Foundation work with a rights focus within a peer to peer education model. 

  Between 2008 and 2009, programs of Project 19 included:

• Training approximately 15 to 20 young people over a period of four to six months to become Peer Facilitators on the issues HIV & AID and Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and HIV & AIDS who then conducted interactive workshops with young people aged between 18 and 28 years. The project held two open-forum workshops as well as Colleges in Delhi University.

• The Project 19 Festival, which was started in 2009, is a national- level annual festival which aims to facilitate interaction between diverse urban young people and at risk of HIV communities around issues of sexuality, health and human rights. Through various forms of expression like theatre, music, art, photography and film, the festival creates a space to promote empowerment, generate dialogue and provide opportunities for networking. The Festival in 2009 was held on the 15th and 16th of February, and attended by 500 individuals and 35 organisations. It was hosted by TYPF in collaboration with CHP (Centre for Human Progress), and supported by Ford Foundation, NACO, UNDP amongst others. 

2009: The project from this year onwards will focus on a common community based advocacy programme which involves and mobilises young people towards active involvement in areas of debate within a local and national context on issues of rights, sexuality and HIV/AIDS.

Within this broad framework the project is based on a three tier strategy, which involves;

• A series of bi-lingual peer education workshops within, conceptualised, designed and implemented entirely by young people on sexuality education, rights and safer practices.

• A Research on youth organisations and organisations working with youth in area of sexuality and HIV/AIDS within India.

• Annual Project 19 Festival focussing on interaction between diverse young people from different communities.

In February of 2009, UNAIDS  featured Project 19 Festival on their website, citing the Festival as a "huge success". The festival was also recently covered by The Washington Post.

For more information about The YP Foundation:

• Visit their website
• Read their blog
• Watch videos on their YouTube channel
• Read a piece on their work at Conversations for a Better World  

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