Juhu school kids break stereotypes, bring in parents to meet transgenders Revolutionary Cuban leader Fidel Castro dies at 90; funeral on Dec 4 BEARDED REBEL

For the past year, students of the Ecole Mondiale World School at Juhu have been working out ways to help transgenders in Mumbai become financially independent. The first step: breaking down the walls of stigma around the community.

To do this, the students brought together their parents and members of the LGBT community together for an interaction on Friday — possibly the first time a school in Mumbai took up such an initiative.

As part of the project, the students will train the transgenders to upload short do-it-yourself videos on YouTube, in which they can share their expertise in fashion, make-up and other fields. “Once the videos start trending, they will generate an income through advertisements,” said Khushi Kapoor, a Class 10 student.

This is part of a four-point programme the students devised. The programme also aims at spreading awareness on safe-sex among transgenders, starting a mobile dispensary and dispelling prejudices and stereotypes. Members of the community don’t get job opportunities owing how society discriminates against them, the students said.

“We met Haya, and she told us about the lack of awareness about safe-sex in their community, how they feel awkward going to hospitals, and how they have to battle economic hardships because of discrimination from society,” said Nayantara Deane, another student.

Fidel Castro, who led his bearded rebels to victorious revolution in 1959, embraced Sovietstyle communism and defied the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his half-century of rule in Cuba, has died at age 90.

With a shaking voice, President Raul Castro said on state television that his older brother died at 10:29 p.m. Friday. He ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan: “Toward victory, always!”

Castro’s reign over the island nation 90 miles (145km) from Florida was marked by the US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Castro, who outlasted a crippling US trade embargo as well as dozens, possibly hundreds, of assassination plots, died 10 years after a life-threatening illness led him to turn over power to his brother. He was born on August 13, 1926, in Biran in eastern Cuba.