TODXS NGO transforms Brazil through the empowerment and education of the LGBTQIAPN+ community

After five friends faced an episode of homophobia at a restaurant in Recife (PE) in 2016, the group mapped safe places for the LGBTQIAPN+ community, which later evolved into TODXS, an NGO that empowers community leaders across Brazil.

The organisation was launched in the same year through a Facebook page and group, inviting more people to join the mission of expanding safety for everyone. In 2017, TODXS launched its first projects and established its fiscal structure. Among these projects were TODXS APP (for now available only for Android), TODXS Embaixadorxs, TODXS Café and TODXS Conecta (these last two projects were interrupted), and all initiatives aimed at informing, connecting and empowering the LGBTQIAPN+ community.

Over the years, some projects were discontinued, but new ones entered the organisation’s impact scope. In 2023, TODXS focused its efforts on projects such as the Fundo TODXS, #RespeitaMinhaIdentidade, the launch of educational booklets on rights and health, and a second edition of the TODXS Embaixadorxs program.

In a conversation with Lupa do Bem, Daniel Kehl, co-CEO of TODXS, mentioned that the project has structured itself around three main pillars crucial for the development not only of other individuals but also of other NGOs: community empowerment, societal education, and transformation of the job market.

Training

The main fronts of the NGO are the Embaixadorxs program, a leadership training to encourage the LGBTQIAPN+ community to have more representation and knowledge, and the entrepreneurship programs:

“We consider these programs a tool for social change, mainly a form of survival. To this end, we have two specific programs for promoting entrepreneurship, which is the Fundo TODXS  (initially the editions were exclusive to trans and transvestite people) and gave an injection of not just capital, but also knowledge and TODXS Impacto, a project to incubate projects that may or may not be social in favour of this LGBTQIAPN+ community”, said Daniel.

To educate the population, TODXS Pesquisa was also born in 2018. Currently, demographic research on the Brazilian population does not include sections focused on the LGBTQIAPN+ community and this perception motivated the NGO to carry out its surveys. For the co-CEO of TODXS, there must be numbers about the community so that they can argue and fight for rights and representation. The survey resulted in five contents that are available in the NGO’s virtual library.

“With the data, we developed these reports related to health, employment, violence, and family and, in the election year, we launched the special edition on politics and our community’s relationship with public policies, but mainly what was being said and predicted for our social group by the leaders and decision-makers of that year”, explains Daniel.

Initiatives with an eye on the future

Still in 2023, TODXS, in partnership with Antra and Doritos, launched the #RespeitaMinhaIdentidade campaign, which aims to help trans and transvestite people in correcting their names. Daniel explains that the goal is to fund and legally support this population as the process is not yet so accessible and can be long.

“To carry out this project, we created a large support network and TODXS works as a bridge between other smaller NGOs and fundraising. We have grown and consolidated ourselves more and more here in São Paulo to be able to dialogue with the corporate market and attract resources to distribute among smaller NGOs. We raised around R$900,000, and created a large group of 20 non-profit organizations focused on trans and transvestites across the country. With this, each of our regional partners would be able to act locally on behalf of the project as a whole”, he said.

Daniel further explains that the work goes beyond distributing the money, but also guides organizations on how to carry out this entire rectification process. In addition to promoting leadership and initiatives, TODXS also works to ensure that official figures on the Brazilian population include the groups served by the project. To this end, the TODXS Research branch has been carrying out surveys that not only serve to control the community’s growth but also to educate society.

One of TODXS’ goals is to be able to share research with the Demographic Census, and for the project’s co-CEO, it is extremely important so that they can fight for representation and truly inclusive public policies. The vision for until 2027 includes enhancing access to income, strengthening leaders and social organizations, engaging decision makers and educating society through reliable data on the LGBTQIAPN+ population.

TODXS’ numbers to date are significant, with more than 1000 LGBTQIAPN+ leaders trained, 25 million accesses to educational content, large investments in impact projects and the rectification of 600 names of trans and transvestite people, currently the NGO has a solid structure that tends to grow even more in the coming years. New volunteers are recruited every six months and the selection process involves people from all regions of Brazil simply and remotely.

Did you like this initiative and want to support it? 

Visit the TODXS  website and their social media profiles on Instagram, Facebook, X and LinkedIn.