Take a stand with LGBT Voice Tanzania

We would like to sincerely thank you for your generous support to our organization, through your support we were able to raise about $9,000 during the 2014 Year End Giving Challenge.

LGBT Voice has designed a 12 months project named Ensuring Equal Rights to LGBT Tanzanians with two main objectives:

1. To prevent the passing of a new introduced  legislation entitled ‘The Bill to Prohibit and Control any form of Sexual Relations between Persons of the Same Sex, 2014’, to suppress the rights of LGBT people by ensuring that awareness is spread through the civil society, policy making and donor community about the negative implications of such a move.

2. To generate more broad-based support for the LGBT community in Tanzania from all sections of society through careful, incremental public education initiatives

This project has four main activities which are:

1. Training for 20 LGBT activists on organizational, informational and personal security.
2. Formation of an LGBT reference group on the proposed anti-homosexuality law. This group will be comprised of individuals from within the LGBTI community and from other sectors of society who are sympathetic to the campaign for equal rights. The group will meet regularly and be tasked with organizing dialogues (see below), tracking new developments and providing frequent updates to Freedom House on the status of implementation of the bill and support it is receiving in parliament.
3. Closed-door dialogues with key stakeholders. These dialogue sessions will be organized by the reference group and aims to discuss with MPs, political party leaders and government officials the issues that are facing the LGBTI community in Tanzania, the negative implications of the passage of the new bill and proposals to ensure respect for the equal rights of LGBT persons in the context of Tanzania’s new constitution. The project will provide for transport and accommodation costs for meeting participants, hire of secure venues and incidental expenses.
4. Domestic and International media advocacy. Should the bill proceed as far as a debate and vote in parliament, LGBT Voice Tanzania in careful consultation with the LGBTI reference group will implement advocacy activities - events, press releases, social media campaigns - in Tanzania and abroad calling for the bill to be defeated and for the Tanzanian government to ensure the LGBT community is protected

Currently we are providing training to activisits on personal security, reporting incidences of human rights violation and data documentation. we will then form the reference group after the trainings.

We plan to start to collect evidence of human rights violation based on gender identity and sex orientation early March 2015 through April, then do the analysis and reporting early May 2015. The report will be diseminated and start the advocacy campaigns early June 2015.

We still need your help because this year we are going to have a real taugh work talking to policy makers in closed dors and organizing advocacy workshops to negotiate and convince them to repect and protect LGBT rights, it is also another opportunity because our country is going hold elections this year and we want candidates to tell us what they have for LGBT people in their consitituencies.

Kindly continue supporting our work so that we can be able to win the battle for equality in Tanzania.

Find the Attached Action plan for this project;

• Action plan for Ensuring Equal Rights to LGBT (DOC)