GAY AND LESBIAN COALITION OF KENYA

Dear Kenyas LGBTIQ Community,

Greetings from the General Meeting Process Steering Committee.

A famous president once said-"Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future". The is a very important season for LGBTIQ movement in Kenya, infact it is the most important season we could ever have, a season where we get to put our heads together, our voices in unison as we forge ahead for progression.

This year so far, we have registered tremendous progress as well and encountered challenges along the way. For this reason we are required to pick ourselves up, go back to the drawing board, identify the areas we went wrong and accept collective responsibility and re-strategize in accordance to our overall objective.

Like in almost all LGBTIQ and Kuchu events, the venue will be made public as close to the event date as possible.  All the invitees representing member groups, new applicants, affiliate and partner organizations and observers shall receive communication detailing the venue and directions, programme and agenda on Wednesday 29^th of August.

The General Meeting Process that will go beyond this weekend presents a window of opportunity. It is an opportune time that welcomes ideas for change, a time that welcomes and accommodates innovative modes of thinking that perhaps we may have not considered before. This is a time that enables us to trace back our footsteps and identify where we may have strayed away and how to make it right.

The General Meeting process committee welcomed a rigorous consultative process with the community which in essence was GALCK back to the community. The committee has also had a series of dialogues with the GALCK member organisations that have helped bridge the gap between the GALCK Secretariat and the coalition member organisations.

As you have been made aware of the last couple of days, the 2012 GALCK Biennial General Meeting is to be held on Friday 31^st August and Saturday 1^st September at a venue that shall be soon communicated to the invited delegates. Final touches logistical and security preparations are being undertaken by a combined team that beams with optimism and hope of a marvellous meeting.

Looking forward to having the community representatives from various organizations, and groupings come together. Tusonge Mbele Pamoja!!

Dear Kenyas LGBTIQ community,

Greetings from the General Meeting Process Steering Committee.

These are exciting times we are in. Barely two months ago, the LGBTIQ community thought that GALCK would have a normal General Meeting, following the same processes and approaches of past general meetings. A planning committee had been formed, all the necessary logistical preparations were in place, from the sending invitations to member groups to new and emerging groups, from partners to affiliates and other observers, to booking venues and preparing the necessary reports for presentation.

But this wasn't going to be an ordinary General Meeting. The General Meeting Planning Committee that was constituted at the GALCK National Forum held in May, had by the second week of planning been made aware of certain concerns within the broader LGBTIQ community. Discussions around GALCKs mandate, structure, membership and ‘services’ provided by groups and the umbrella body in general were at a high momentum. It was quickly felt that this process would benefit from the support of objective, experienced and non-partisan moderators.  As such, three moderators were invited to volunteer their time and the general meeting planning became the General Meeting Process.

People have asked, and continue to ask “when last did you consult us and seek our mandate?” well, this is what the GM Process is all about: consultation!

The following is Communication from the Transitioning Africa Team, who had a meeting in Nairobi last week. Speculation was rife after it was misreported that a "local politician" had bundled the participants out of his hotel. upon request from Transitioning Africa, we held back any commuincation till they made an official statement. This was for safety and security concerns.

"Dear All,

Greetings from Transitioning Africa.

This is to confirm that we had a capacity building camp going on in Nairobi at a local hotel and the reasons why we left are as follows.

The first two days of the camp went as scheduled but at the end of the second day the management called us and told us that we had not informed them of “the kind of group” we had. They also mentioned that over the weekend when we had arrived and considering it had coincided with a public holiday, they had guests over and some of the guests complained asking them (management)  “what kind of people are you having here?” Other guests apparently cancelled their bookings because of us and even some staff were discriminatory to us in that they didn’t want to serve us. They went on to tell us that they have no problem having us stay at the hotel but on condition that our participants “change their dress code”. Obviously this was not something we would agree to and we came to the conclusion that we could not continue as planned but would go on until Friday. This date came about due to the hotel informing us of potential altercation with certain groups that were booked into the hotel over the weekend. There were three Church groups and one high profile meeting consisting of politicians and potentially the media. The management expressed their discomfort and unwillingness to have us in the same space with these groups. Furthermore they indicated that they could not guarantee our safety. With this in mind, we felt that the environment had become hostile and unsafe for our participants to be in and we felt it better for us to leave at the agreed date of Friday.

However, a Nairobi LGBTI news website had got wind of the events occurring and posted very potentially damaging information on their website. Considering the way the story was put, it it aggravated our insecurity. We then had to act fast. We immediately organised transport to get us out on Thursday morning and continue the meeting elsewhere while we arranged for participants to safely get home.

We would like to thank everyone for their concerns. We have gotten everyone safely in their homes and that was our primary concern.

We however note that our insecurity was heightened due to the fact that the information that went public was misrepresentative, taken out of context and posed a much greater risk to our participants.

We felt and still feel that this mode of spreading of information and misrepresentation jeopardises any security measures being taken by meeting organisers on the ground and express that future concerns be addressed with the security of persons in mind."

On behalf of The Transitioning Africa Team"

On behalf of The Transitioning Africa Team