GAY AND LESBIAN COALITION OF KENYA

The Global Dialogues process, is a project that has been conducted every year since 1997. The project is driven by these key components.

• Youth voice & social mobilisation. Global Dialogues outreach teams operating at community level and online engage young people in innovative, participatory activities designed to stimulate and amplify youth voice. In international contests, young people express themselves by creating stories, or narratives, on global public health issues and other topics of crucial importance to our world.
• Social media for change. Through creative collaboration – or, as we like to say, intercreativity – young people’s stories are brought to life as Global Dialogues films or theatre presentations, made available in numerous languages, and distributed freely at community level, on the Internet and on television, reaching hundreds of millions of people every year.
• The generation of new knowledge on youth perspectives through narrative inquiry. The stories created by young people in Global Dialogues activities are systematically studied to gain new insights into youths’ thoughts and feelings, concerns and dreams, challenges and solutions.

The Skeiv Ungdom (Queer Youth Norway) and the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK) every year for the last 3 years partner with funding from the Peace Corps and the National Council for Norwegian Children and Youth Council (LNU) to run a 10 Months exchange project with the aim of accessing the state of affairs of the LGBTIQ communities in the global south and the global north and work towards achievable resolutions.

The 1^st exchange project in 2010 was themed “Fighting violence with love” while the 2^nd exchange project 2011-2012 was themed “Sexuality and spirituality”. The theme of this year’s exchange project is “(In) Visibility”. The goal of the project is to promote visibility of LGBTIQ individuals who are not only afflicted by their sexual orientation or gender identity but are faced with other afflictions that set them aside from the rest of the community. For example a lesbian woman or a gay man with physical or mental disabilities, a transgender with TB or HIV/AIDS or cancer, religious fanatics etc. The project seeks to access the probable giving’s and as well as the misgivings of having multiple forms of oppression and discrimination at the same time (intersectionality). The project also seeks to bring together mainstream LGBTIQ organizations from the region and get them more involved in promoting inclusion of intersectionalism.

Happy New Year!

This is the first of edition of the GALCK Newsletter, an initiative to share updates and news between all of the organizations. Let’s start the New Year off right by keeping each other aware of what’s going on.

GALCK updates include the release of the Transition Team’s Final Report and the resignation of Jackson Otieno in mid- January.

In addition, the outcome of the Director’s and Board meeting held on January 27^th was seen as positive. A Task Force Committee was established to oversee work and duties until more GALCK secretariat staff is hired. This Committee is composed of Jonah Chinga, Board Chair, Audrey Mbugua of TEA, John Mathenge of HOYMAS, Peter Njane of Ishtar, Anthony Oluoch of GKT and Lorna Diaz of the community.

Member Group Updates:

GKT is preparing to roll out the second phase of the community education program “Breaking the Myths: Acknowledging, Tolerance and Sensitivity to LGB Issues in Kenya. This project, seeks to address the key human rights needs areas for the LGB community in Kenya, as well as identify possible avenues to seek redress, inclusion and mainstreaming of the LGB issues in the socioeconomic and political arena in Kenya.

The group is also working on GKT Community Journalism, an ongoing program that aims at highlighting concerns, opinions and personal stories of the gay and lesbian community; having them tell their stories in their own words and from their point of view. This is also an income generating program and persons whose articles are published are compensated. All articles should be sent to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Gay Kenya Trust has rolled out a project dubbed HAKI- Awareness, which is an initiative developed to create civic consciousness  among sexual minority persons, as well as enhance and increase vigilance in the face of security uncertainty due to the current political euphoria. The project will empower the sexual minority community to remain vigilant for potential violence through community watch, strengthening referral security and wellness systems as well as reporting and documentation of any forms of violations.

MWA participated in Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL) EAST AFRICAN INITIATIVE, FEMINIST THINK TANK Meeting at HOTEL LAMADA 29TH AUGUST-1ST SEPTEMBER 2012

Q-FM Radio hosted MWA in the first week of October, 2012 where they discussed Parent-son/daughter relationships, friendships between gay and straight persons, and Health of LB persons.

Members of the group also attended various events including: 5th African Conference on Sexual Health Rights, the 14th Session of the UN Universal Periodic Review, and the ILGA World Conference in Stockholm Dec 2012.

MWA held a November Mental health forum in the Arboretum for members and a December closing end year forum at Arboretum in December for members.

UKWELI Mombasa is working on some proposals to submit to Hivos and Lavi. In addition, they have been working with Aphia and people at the coast in hopes of getting support for peer education sessions and are in the process of signing a MOU with them.

UKWELI is also working on some fundraising events to help raise money for office equipment.

TEA has completed an interview/documentary film on transgender education. An edited version will soon be available online and on their website.

Ishtar MSM is running a one year program called “We are one” for the running and maintenance of the SASA Centre. SASA Centre is a health facility located in Nairobi (beneath GALCK Offices) that provides HIV&AIDS care to Most at Risk Populations that include sex workers and MSM.

In addition, ISHTAR in partnership with NOPE held an open Health forum discussion meeting on 25th January2013, at the GODOWN ARTS CENTER. The main objective of this meeting was to create awareness on Health issues among MSM.