latimes: What is it like to be gay in a country where it’s essentially illegal? The Times talked to Jay Abang, 28, a program manager with Freedom and Roam Uganda, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex human rights organization trying to combat the law. Abang is an openly lesbian activist in Kampala, Uganda. Photo: Ugandan gay activist David Kato is featured in a book during a memorial service for Kato in Kampala, the capital, on Jan. 26. He was slain a year earlier. Credit: Michele Sibiloni / AFP/Getty Images High-res

latimes:

What is it like to be gay in a country where it’s essentially illegal? The Times talked to Jay Abang, 28, a program manager with Freedom and Roam Uganda, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex human rights organization trying to combat the law. Abang is an openly lesbian activist in Kampala, Uganda.

Photo: Ugandan gay activist David Kato is featured in a book during a memorial service for Kato in Kampala, the capital, on Jan. 26. He was slain a year earlier. Credit: Michele Sibiloni / AFP/Getty Images

Persecuted at home, African homosexuals seek refuge in Kenya

Until a new anti-homosexuality bill caused a wave of homophobia in Uganda, John and Paul could hold hands in the streets of the capital Kampala and kiss in night club.

Then the nightmare started — people began insulting and then assaulting them, and then they had to run away to Kenya. The couple have been in Nairobi since May of last year.

Like other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, they came to this urban jungle seeking anonymity, explained the official running a programme that looks after these refugees.

His organisation, which last year alone looked after 67 LGBT cases in Kenya, did not want to be named for fear of endangering its refugees.

Some have fled a strict application of Islamic law in Somalia, others are running from general sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo and yet others have fled a climate of growing hostility elsewhere in east Africa.

Some hope to be able to find refuge in Western countries sympathetic to their plight, such as the United States.

(via )

wfp:

In the Acholi region of Uganda, every school child gets at least one WFP meal a day.

We wanted you to meet some of these students. Now that they don’t have to think about where their next meal is coming from, they can focus on learning. WFP school meals are designed to help the government of Uganda address hunger. By strengthening the minds of school kids, however, school meals do more than address hunger: they invest in the next generation.

Photo Copyright: Lydia Wamala & Vanessa Vick

(via united-nations)

  • Reblogged from wfp
  • Source: wfp