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02 November 2022

Support announced to help strengthen thirty LGBT+ organisations across the Commonwealth

We know from experience that progress for LGBT+ rights is mostly generated by brave activists operating locally. As part of our vision to ensure a free, safe and equal world for LGBT+ people everywhere, one of our key goals is ensuring that those working to defend the human rights of LGBT+ people across the Commonwealth have the funding, resources and training they need to support their work. So we’re really excited to announce that, following the successful completion of a pilot scheme earlier this year, we will now be providing personalised development support to a further thirty LGBT+ organisations in seventeen different countries. Many of these organisations operate in countries where there are laws criminalising LGBT+ people and/or where discrimination and violence are constant threats.

Under our capacity development programme, made possible by funding from the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, organisations working to progress LGBT+ rights in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific will be supported. They will be matched with expert advisers who will support them to develop in one or more of the following areas:

  • Legal and policy advocacy
  • Public campaigns and communication
  • Preventing staff burnout
  • Monitoring, evaluation, and learning
  • Maximising research impact for positive change
  • Effective outreach to communities most affected by intersectional stigma and discrimination

Feedback from the initial round of interventions was overwhelmingly positive, with one participant commenting:

“The one-on-one approach was beneficial as I had the professional/presenter all to myself. If it were a session with other participants, I may not have been as open or expressive about my personal struggles. The relaxed atmosphere allowed for free flow in conversation.”

One of the organisations that will be supported during this programme commented:

“As a Trans men-specific organisation, we were motivated to apply for the Legal and Policy Advocacy Capacity Development Intervention because Transgender people in [our country] are not recognised by law and are absolutely criminalised due to ignorance and transphobia. 

“As an organisation, we would like to obtain skills, knowledge and information on how best we can strategise and engage the law-making bodies and policy makers to see that there’s fairness and equality when it comes to engaging transgender persons. We expect to acquire a wider understanding on strategies that we will put in use to challenge the unfair policies and harmful laws that target Transgender people. We also expect to be able to obtain information that we can share within the transgender community as a form of community empowerment on laws and policies in [our country].”

The volume of applications for support we received through our capacity development programme this time was overwhelming, with eight times the number of applications as places available. We hope to raise further funds to repeat and extend the scheme in the future. If you’d like to support our work, you can donate here.