Breaking Barriers: India's First GSA
This morning, GLSEN had an opportunity to sit around a table with some pastries, coffee, and five representatives from a Gay-Straight Alliance. What made this morning so unique? This GSA happened to be visiting us from India.Oh, and they’re the very first GSA in the entire 1.25 billion person population country.
Their award-winning group is called Breaking Barriers—and for good reason. The four student representatives and their adviser (and group founder) Shivanee Sen educated us at GLSEN about their humanitarian efforts in a country where homosexuality is in fact criminalized. They have their work cut out for them but if anyone’s up to the task, it’s these young people. After 30 hours of leadership training, assignments-based curriculum, and active role playing, the high school students involved in Breaking Barriers are already veritable teachers in their home life and communities. And the media in India is taking notice—they have already been featured in newspapers and primetime television interviews. But this growing GSA doesn’t stop there.
The dozens of student leaders from Breaking Barriers have already addressed hundreds of students and teachers about the very tenets of gender identity and sexuality across school districts beyond their own. While sex education beyond basic biology is often not allowed in Indian schools, this organization has worked to bring open discourse on one of the most taboo subjects in sex education anywhere. By discussing LGBT issues from the standpoint of human rights advocacy, they’re bringing healthy sex education to other young people just like themselves in terms they too can support.
Breaking Barriers may have been borne out of India’s Tagore International School in Delhi, but the rest of the world can truly benefit from their passionate allyship of the LGBT community. We’re grateful for their work, and we look forward to seeing what else they will accomplish. For more about this exciting GSA, you can check out the Feminist Teacher, Ileana Jimenez’s in-depth coverage--and don’t forget to like Breaking Barriers on Facebook!