T-Fitrah helps transgenders return to right path

KUALA TERENGGANU: A human development programme tailored for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community in the city has helped nearly 30 per cent of 80 ‘Mak Nyah' or transgender individuals returned to the right path. The programme, introduced two years ago by Terengganu Health Transformation Association (T-Fitrah), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), it aimed at approaching the transgender community and to help them return to the right path and stop practising unnatural sex.

T-Fitrah president Dr Sharif Ahmad said the association also organised regular activities such as Quran classes, selfempowerment classes and sexual health by engaging health and religious experts to give talks to the participants. “We also communicate with the community often using the WhatsApp application in friendly manner, without any element of force or coercion so that these individuals made the changes on their own free will and not to get involved in negative activities anymore,” he told Bernama yesterday.

Presently, T Fitrah was mobilised by 10 volunteers with the help of students from the Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA).

Dr Sharif said his experience as a medical doctor at the Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital (HSNZ) where there were many young patients, aged between 20 and 40, were receiving HIV treatment due to unnatural sex, had compelled him to implement the programme.

He said T Fitrah was also in the midst of establishing a onestop centre for education and to empower the transgender people around the city, with the location had been identified, a gift from a big-hearted donor.