Naz (Foundation)

A home for adults and children with AIDS in New Delhi / A visit by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy during the French Head of State’s and his wife’s visit to India (6 December 2010)

After a spell working on AIDS-related issued in the US, Anjali Gopalan moved back to India in the early 1990s. She established an NGO for AIDS patients in New Delhi. The Naz Foundation (India) Trust opened in 1994 to take in patients, disseminate information, prevent the disease from spreading, run educational courses and provide care, with an in-house clinic. It treats and educates people, but it is also actively involved in efforts to curb stigmatisation and all forms of sexual discrimination against gay and transgender populations. The Milan Project, the Naz Foundation (India) Trust’s first programme, was tailored to the male homosexual population. It won the MTV Staying Alive Foundation Award two years running, in 2006 and 2007, which in turn prompted the Ministry of Women and Child Development to commend Anjali Gopalan’s remarkable work with AIDS orphans, in 2007. She opened a home in 2000, when a man turned up in her office with a child, completely helpless. Another of her programmes, the Goal, Reaching New Heights, which she started in 2006, has since stretched to Mumbai (2008) and Chennai (2009).