Chehak Gidwani
Country: India
Advocacy areas: Disability justice and rights, Policy Advocacy, Program conceptualization in healthcare equity
Background:
Chehak is a queer-disabled and feminist development professional. They are currently working at the Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy on Project Outlive, a youth suicide prevention program, wherein they engage with marginalised youth to build capacities for policy engagement and advocacy for suicide prevention. They also write on the intersections between queerness/transness and disability.
As a disabled person, they hope to use their voice and identity to create action and communities of care for disabled trans folks. They have also co-founded an initiative named RADIATE (Radical Access for Disability Inclusion and Advocacy Towards Equity) to address the issue of inequitable access to evidence-based services for trans-disabled folks in healthcare spaces. The organization aims to also work as a space to initiate legal and policy reform to equip health providers and systems to practice disability affirmative care, particularly in SRHR spaces. They are interested in expanding into livelihoods and climate justice for disabled people as well.
Affiliations:
RADIATE (Radical Access for Disability Inclusion and Advocacy Towards Equity)