WHAT WE DO
ADVANCING LGBTQI+ RIGHTS IN WEST AFRICA
We work to strengthen activists and organizations, helping them build the capacity and solidarity needed to respond to crises, combat injustice, and create a just and inclusive society.
Guided by principles of intersectional feminism, gender justice, and decolonization, we implement holistic strategies and initiatives rooted in traditional African practices and grounded in community realities. We address the overlapping identities within the communities we serve, ensuring our support is impactful where and when it matters most.
OUR 5-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN
Our five-year strategic plan, “Building Collective Power,” embodies our unwavering commitment to weaving a liberated future with and for young LGBTQI communities in West Africa. Our work is evolving as the dynamics of the movement change. Learn how we are building movement power to demand justice, counter prevailing negative rhetoric, and counter anti-rights and anti-gender actions.
“This strategy is about people and our collective power when we come together to counter-narrative and challenge oppressive systems antithetical to our liberation.”
— Justin Chidozie, Co-Executive Director
CROSS-CUTTING THEMES
Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
Digital Rights and Safety
Human Rights Advocacy
Economic Justice
Inclusive Feminist Futures
OUR APPROACH
MOVEMENT BUILDING
We work with LGBTQI+ activists and organisers to create sustained social change through capacity and leadership development, community engagement, coalition building, and convenings.
ADVOCACY
Our Advocacy efforts involve actively campaigning for the recognition, resourcing and protection of LGBTQI+ rights. This includes lobbying for the repeal of discriminatory laws, promoting policies that ensure equality and safety, evidence-based research and raising awareness of human rights violations. This extends beyond local efforts, requiring strategic actions at multiple levels.
At the national level, we work with activists and grassroot organizations to challenge and change punitive laws. Regionally, we collaborate with other gender justice movements to strengthen our influence and share resources. Globally, we partner with international human rights and LGBTQI+ organizations, participate in global forums, and leverage international pressure to push for legal reforms.
NARRATIVE CHANGE
Narrative is a set of related stories that are articulated and refined over time to represent a central idea or belief, and to successfully change the current narrative on LGBTQI+ identities, we shift power to communities to reframe dominant narratives.
We do this by building out the base of our organizations and others engaged in narrative efforts, and by crafting narrative approaches that are designed to reach and activate new and diverse audiences in order to shift social norms and policies.