Development manual : developing community-based organisations addressing HIV/AIDS, sexual health, welfare and human rights issues for males-who-have-sex-with-males, their partners and families : book 3 : First phase: Social and needs assessment

This is the 3th handbook in a series of 6 that provides a comprehensive guide and tool kit towards developing a community-based male sexual health programme working with MSM and associated issues in India. It is designed to be MSM and associated issues specific, focusing on the most visible of MSM from low-income networks, those whose self-identify as feminised males, such as kothis. Book 3 explores the first phase of developing a peer-led intervention in a particular town or city. It needs to be recognised that in the main there is no such thing as an MSM community, but a series of autonomous networks of differing sexualities and identities, and that in South Asia the primary frameworks appears to be based on gendered roles, practices and performance. It is essential therefore before any intervention is developed, to discover what networks do exist, and what the sexual practices, sexual health concerns, levels of knowledge, and attitudes and behaviour among the differing networks and participants in male-to-male sexual behaviours are. In other words, a social and risk assessment amongst at-risk MSM needs to be done.