What's Going On in Kenya - LGBTQ+ People in Kakuma Refugee Camp

Описание: On Saturday, February 18th, 2023, as part of our Donuts and Conversation program, we spent a couple of hours with a group living in a refugee camp in Kenya. The majority of these brave and courageous people fled their homes in Uganda, hoping for a better life with the protection of the United Nations.

This was not to be the case. For years now they have been trapped in a homophobic world where beatings, rape, and murder are far too common. They talked about the need for activism outside the camp and outside Kenya. We pledged to encourage people to write to their legislators, especially to those who sit on the appropriate committees in the US House and Senate. We can all do that.

They asked us to write to Western European UN representatives and ask for their help, and to the Kenyan embassy in Washington, DC. For these outstanding friends in this camp to get services, they need Kenya to grant then refugee status. So far, the homophobic government has left them as asylum seekers, not open to services.

If we think, even for a moment, that this is not our fight, it is important to note what happened while we were on ZOOM with them. At the close of our call, I was notified that a 19-year-old gay boy was found burned and shot on railroad tracks in Brooklyn, NY. This wasn't Kenya, or Texas, this was Brooklyn, New York.

As safe as some of us feel, we are only a heartbeat away from those brave souls across the ocean. Just as we need to tell everyone's stories at Stonewall, we need to stand tall in the face of oppression, for that is our community for that is our community's true and lasting legacy.

Read their stories: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11...

Sign their petition: https://www.change.org/p/stop-lgbtiq-...