Please Donate To Support Ugandan LGBTI Community!

Dear blog followers,

I received the following emergency appeal from the director of the Universal Love Alliance in Uganda. The LGBTI community there is in a uniquely vulnerable position. ULA needs funds ASAP to help LGBTI persons get food during a time when public transports and the informal street economy have all been shut down which uniquely impacts people who are stigmatized and ostracized from their families of origin. You can donate by visiting their Paypal link.

To: Rev. Morgan Guyton

Re:  Requesting Funds to Purchase Food for Vulnerable LGBTIQ People in Uganda

The coronavirus is affecting everyone in the world.  All are vulnerable now to this terrible disease. Already vulnerable communities are at even greater risk than the rest of the population.  In this let us look at the LGBTIQ community in Uganda.

The President of Uganda, Mr. Kaguta Yoweri Museveni, issued a directive that banned public transport as well as the use of boda-bodas from transporting people.  It also required closing markets and encouraged people to stay in their homes. This directive covers all of Uganda and, of course, we need to cooperate in the fight against the coronavirus. 

This fight is affecting the LGBTIQ community as follows:

Most LGBTIQ who live in Kampala were banished from their parental home. Many of them have been threatened with death in the community where they grew up.  They ended up living on the streets or in slum housing in Kampala. They cannot go back to their homes in villages. Going back to their villages would mean risking death. In Kampala, they have been depending on casual labor for day jobs, enough to pay for food on a daily basis.  Now they cannot get work, as all companies have closed, and people are not allowed to be together. Other LGBTIQ people have depended on picking up empty bottles in the street and selling them to get the deposit money. Now they cannot get where the empty bottles are. This means they do not have any money with which to buy food.

Food can now only be purchased at specified food stores and supermarkets.   Most LGBTIQ people do not have the money to buy food. Further food is now delivered to homes by carriers and private cars after the food has been ordered by phone or online.  This blocks LGBTIQ people from getting food.

Further, many of the carriers threaten LGBTIQ people, so it is not safe to use them even if there was money for food purchase.  And some faith leaders in Uganda are blaming LGBTIQ people for COVID-19. In other words, while everyone as at risk from the coronavirus, the situation is truly dire for LGBTIQ people in Uganda.

Universal Love Alliance is making this request for funds to Rev. Morgan Guyton, and to your friends, so we can get food and deliver it to vulnerable LGBTIQ people that need it here in Kampala.

We are all vulnerable and we need to help each other as best as we can.

Rev. Morgan Guyton and the community you work with, we thank you very much for supporting us.

Turinawe Samson,
Executive Director
Universal Love Alliance (ULA)
www.universallovealliance.org
Tel: +256 752 955063
P.O. Box 31522 Kampala, Uganda

Please donate to Universal Love Alliance through their Paypal link.