Dear friends,
My name is Kiara and I'm an activist from the Kilimanjaro region in Tanzania.
Being a lesbian in Tanzania is incredibly hard. The prejudice and resentment against people like me run deep in our society. When I put on a nice dress, lipstick, and high heels, people say "you can't be a lesbian – you're so feminine, you should be with a man."
I recently came out to my mom and she told me that I have to change and that I should "find a man who can satisfy me." And my uncle even said he could find two or three men to rape me and "put me straight."
It hurts and terrifies me to hear these things from my own family. But I was lucky to meet the Eagle Wings Youth Initiative, a Tanzanian LGBT+ rights group. They helped me find a community and a place where I finally felt accepted and safe.
Now I'm working with them to help others – among them, other women who had to run away from home because their families wanted to force them to get married or because they were raped.
We're planning to build a shelter where LGBT+ Tanzanians can go where they can safely be themselves. It will be a place to build a community and provide legal support to those in danger.
Because it's illegal to be gay in Tanzania and the government is cracking down on LGBT+ rights groups, it's impossible for us to fund the shelter locally. But we can do it with your help.
We need a safe place for LGBT+ Tanzanians now more than ever. Since 2015, Tanzania's President John Magufuli has embarked on a "morality crusade," reinforcing discrimination against the LGBT+ community and women, in particular.
And last October, Paul Makonda, the governor of Tanzania's biggest city Dar es Salaam, announced he'll literally hunt down gay people. A few weeks later, 10 men were arrested on the island of Zanzibar after police were tipped off about a possible same-sex marriage ceremony.
Many fled their homes without anywhere to go. There aren't many places and groups in Tanzania that are able to help them in this human rights crisis – that's why we have to step up our efforts.
If enough All Out members chip in, LGBT+ Tanzanians will not only have a safe place to seek shelter from violence and harassment. We will use the space to organize community meetings, provide psychological support and health services, and offer legal assistance to those who have been evicted by their landlords because they're LGBT+.
Thanks for going All Out,
Kiara,
Activist at Eagle Wings
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