About us
Who we are
We are a team of people who are running projects for social change and improving people's lives.
We are a group of people who first came together in Connect and Grow to support an LGBT+ Safehouse in Uganda. We focus on projects that protect people’s human rights, and enable us all to live in dignity.
From those in the safehouse:
We are a self-run safe house for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans (LGBT+) people in Kampala. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, sex minority communities were hit the worst in Uganda – being persecuted by the state, who have very old and primitive laws, and a new law making homosexuality punishable by death, and criminalising being a lesbian for the first time, with 14 years’ imprisonment.
This leaves us as LGBT+ persons in Uganda living in close to hell. With rape, imprisonments, high unemployment, and sometimes murder. We have seen it all.
If the state suspects you to be gay, you face up to 14 years in prison. If you don’t inform on people you suspect to be gay, you can also face up to 14 years in prison. So we live in constant fear. Last year 44 people were arrested at another LGBT+ safe house in Kampala, so we always have to be very careful.
The anti-gay law came from when we were a colony country of the UK, but it has never been changed. Unfortunately, the church in Uganda does not help LGBT+ people be safe, but instead contributes to the hate towards gay people.