QAYN 2012 Annual Report by QAYN

CREATING SPACE, BUILDING A MOVEMENT ANNUAL REPORT 2012

LETTER FROM ADVISORS Dear Friends and Supporters of the Queer African Youth Networking Center (QAYN), With your ongoing support, we are continuing to expand and strengthen the work of the Queer African Youth Networking Center. While we are building a network of community organizers and undertaking movement-building activities that facilitate collective engagement, we are also supporting the capacity building of individual member organizations. Over the past year, have benefitted immensely from the support of many individuals and organizations across Africa and the diaspora. Thank you for your generous support, commitment and valuable time. 2012 was an exciting year for QAYN. It was our second year of existence, and it was filled with challenges and opportunities – which we confidently confronted – guided by a number of strategic questions. How can we better support member organizations in strengthening their institutional growth while doing the same for the network as an entity? How to sustain the involvement and commitment of volunteers? How do we connect with young lesbians, bisexual and gender non-conformist activists and women’s groups doing amazing work in their respective communities, but in isolation, especially in Francophone countries? What should be our entry points for addressing the needs of LGBTQ youth under the age of 21? These and other key questions informed our reflections and decision-making throughout the year, and they will be important considerations as we develop our plans for the upcoming years.

THE YEAR IN A SNAPSHOT

In 2012, our work was supported by several institutional donors, including the Global Fund for Women, Foundation for a Just Society and Urgent Action Fund-Africa, which made it possible to greatly expand our efforts and to respond to some of the critical needs identified by our membership. We engaged in active networking with both individuals and groups in Francophone countries to learn how young women are organizing and to assess their needs for strengthening community mobilizing and advocacy work. As a result of our inquiries, we implemented a training program with Isis International, Gender, Sexuality and Communication: Towards Strengthening the Leadership of young, queer Francophone Women, which brought together eight young activists from four West African countries for a training program in Burkina Faso. We also released Struggling Alone, the Lived Realities of Women who have sex with Women in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Nigeria, a report from our needs assessment. We welcomed Pride Equality (formerly Why We Can’t Get Married), a LGBTI youth organization based in Sierra Leone, as our fifth member organization. We celebrated the oneyear anniversary of publication of Q-zine, our pan-African, digital, art and culture magazine, with an issue on Friends and Family. We also participated in several strategic international spaces, including the Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) Forum, in Istanbul, Turkey as well as the 52nd Ordinary Session and the 25th anniversary of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire, in October 2012. In December, we were thrilled to open the first LGBT community center in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. This much-needed safe space also hosts QAYN’s Secretariat, and is co-managed by three young LGBTQ activists. As this work unfolded, QAYN network members, volunteers and advisors continued to engage in conversations on strategies for leveraging resources, including non-financial resources, to strengthen our collective and individual work. This annual report celebrates the critical contributions of our network members, advisors, volunteers and various supporters who have embraced our vision and spared no energy in supporting QAYN. We look forward to sustaining this momentum and expanding our actions, with your continued support. Caroline Kouassiaman,

Strategic Planning Advisor 1

Investing in Individuals, Forging Collaboration and Building a Network of Queer, Young Women Activists Throughout 2012, QAYN’s work was centered on documentation, movement building activities and deepening existing collaboration. We believe that in order to achieve the long-lasting positive social impact that we aim to achieve, we must work to shift from the current tendency of LGBTQ activists working individually, in isolation and without clear and coherent collective strategies. We believe that supporting leadership development, collaboration, networking, and solidarity across movements must systematically be part of our daily efforts. For this reason, QAYN continues to actively seek to identify and support potential young leaders, especially queer women; support emerging young activists and; learn through shared experiences via networking and exchanges with other movements in other parts of the world.

ACTIVISTS SCHOOL The Activist School titled, Gender, Sexuality and Communication: towards Strengthening the Leadership of Queer, Young Women in Francophone West Africa took place in Burkina Faso, September 24-28, 2012. This training was a collaboration between the Queer African Youth Networking Centre (QAYN) and Isis International. This project, the first of its kind in the sub-region, brought together eight young activists from Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Togo. The overall goal of the training was to deepen individual and organizational agency for creating social changes and advance the rights of LGBTQ individuals. The theoretical part of the training used a participatory approach to promote collective work and team spirit. Each day of the training had a specific but interlinked theme. Day one began with a feminist critical analysis of oppression, focusing on the body, gender, sexuality and power. The second day focused on deepening knowledge and skills in movement building. The third day focused on organizational development based on feminist leadership principles as well as the use of media and communications tools and strategies for social change. Day four strengthened capacity with a focus on personal safety and activists’ well-being. The final day was dedicated to the development of a collective action plan that each group represented was to adapt to its own context. The overall objective of the group’s adopted action plan was to “Create safe spaces that will facilitate the gathering of WSW and house our political, personal, cultural and social debates.” The participants were given six months to implement the action plan, from November 2012 to April 2013.

Throughout 2012, the core of QAYN’s work was documentation, movement building activities and deepening existing collaboration. We believe that in order to achieve the long lasting positive social impact we aim to achieve, we must work to shift from the current tendency of LGBTQ activists working individually, in isolation and without clear and coherent collective strategies. We believe that supporting leadership development, collaboration, networking, solidarity building across movements must systematically be part of our daily efforts. For this reason, QAYN continues to actively seek to identify and support potential young leaders, especially queer women; support emerging young activists; learn through shared experiences through networking and exchanging with other movements in other parts of the world. As this work unfolded, we continued to grapple with how to engage with and address the needs of youth under the age of 18 in our work.g

Q-ZINE

Amplifying Voices and Celebrating Diversities It is undeniable that the media has an enormous influence in shaping and reinforcing social attitudes. To shift the current representation of LGBTQ experience and identities from the victims, deviants and hopeless citizens that mainstream media, most African governments and often other LGBTQ activists have portrayed us to be, QAYN recognizes the need to engage more in creating positive narratives. We believe that this approach uplifts the many ways in which we have managed to construct our lives amidst oppression and it provides spaces to celebrate our creative resilience.

Launch of Q-zine’s Website In May 2012, we launched Q-zine.org to respond to the demand of many of our readers in Africa who, due to slow Internet connections, had trouble accessing the contents of the magazine in its digital format. In addition to having content from the magazine, the website also has a “responsive design”, which means that no matter the device used for browsing, it provides a tailored layout to adjust to the device. This feature is important to us because a growing proportion of Internet users in Africa use their mobile phones for browning. On average, the website gets 100 visitors per day.

Q-zine, One Year of Publication Q-zine continues to encourage LGBTQ Africans and allies to decide for themselves how they should be represented in the media and popular culture by taking ownership of their stories in creative and inspiring ways. We celebrated the magazine’s first year of publication with an issue on “Friends and Family of LGBTI Africans.” Why mark this event with an issue on friends and families? Because, “In the absence of their voices, unfortunately, it is those that would have us disappear that seem to speak the loudest”, according to Keletso Makofane, the Guest Editor of that special issue.

Documenting Our Realities

At QAYN we believe in empowering LGBTQ communities to document their realities in their own voices and to take active roles in developing a “library” on the scope and situations of LGBTQ individuals in West and Central Africa. In April 2012, we published “Struggling Alone: The Lived Realities of Women who have sex with Women in Burki- na Faso, Ghana and Nigeria”. This bilingual (English and French) report is a result of a five-month social context analysis to document the lived realities of lesbians, bisexual, transgendered, queer and women who have sex with women (LBTQWSW) in three West African countries. A group of volunteers engaged in cross-country interviews and focus group discussions to uncover the challenges faced and strategies used by LBTQWSW in living their lives as same-gender loving women.

Consultation with Youth and Assessing Within the African LGBTQI movements, youth, especially those under the age of 21, the legal age in most African countries, are invisible and under-served. The complex social and legal restrictions around working with under-age youth have negatively impacted how LGBTQI organizations are able to openly address the needs of these youth. QAYN has been grappling with how to identify, engage and work with these under-served and under-represented groups. To better guide us in our thinking, we conducted a needs assessment among young men who have sex with men (MSM), in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. We administered a questionnaire to 14 youth, aged 14 to 21, over the course of a two-week period in September 2012. The decision to focus on MSM youth was based on the difficulty of identifying young women who have sex with women (WSW) for participation in the needs assessment, at the time. The needs assessment highlighted several key findings: (1) eight out of 14 youth were still questioning their sexual orientation; (2) the youth surveyed felt isolated, both socially and psychologically, and in need of psychosocial assistance to get through this difficult stage of their lives and; (3) bullying and verbal harassment were the daily reality of the more feminine-presenting youth. Among the 14 participants surveyed, 13 became sexually active at the age of 15, except for one respondent, who had his first sexual experience at the age of 14. The majority, seven of the respondents, had their first sexual experience with a girl their age, three with male adults and, four with boys of their own age. The study pointed to low levels of safe sex practices amongst the youth. Although all participants responded to having some knowledge of STIs, HIV and AIDS transmissions, only two respondents who regularly engaged in same-sex relationship said they used condoms during sex; the other youth responded that they couldn’t afford safer sex kit, particularly lubricant.

Building Visibility and Engaging in Global Networking In April 2012, we convened with other 2,000 women and men from around the world to take part in the 12th International Forum of the Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women’s Rights and Justice, which took place in Istanbul, Turkey. For QAYN this was a strategic networking space, and an opportunity to build visibility around our work and to learn about the various issues that women are addressing in their regions. We were particularly excited about our participation at a global dialogue between LGBTI activists on the importance of integrating economic justice to LGBTI rights and learning about the creative organizing of sex workers movements in Southeast Asia. In September 2012, QAYN’s Program Coordinator spent a week with Isis International, in Manila, to co-develop the training modules of our first activist school workshop. Isis International hosted an evening of sharing and networking with members of two LGBT organizations, Rainbow Rights Project and Society of the Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP), providing a space for us to learn about each other work. In October 2012, we joined several LGBT activists and allies for a learning session and dialogue under the theme, Strategic Engagement with the NGO Forum and African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACmHPR), in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Organized by the African Men for Sexual Health and Rights (AMSHeR), the one-day dialogue provided a space for participants to share their knowledge of the African system of protection of human rights and strengthen a collective strategic engagement at the 52nd ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. This was followed by our participation at the NGO Forum and the 52nd ordinary session, which was also the 25th anniversary of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACmHPR).

Taking Care of our most Valuable Assets, our Lives Connecting Dots, Linking Efforts and Shaping Collective Impact

In 2012, QAYN welcomed its fifth member organization, Pride Equality (formerly WhyCantWeGetMarried.com), a LGBTQ organization based in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Pride Equality’s work focuses on reducing discrimination, stereotype, homophobia, transphobia and patriarchal norms for the attainment of equal rights for all. QAYN was inspired by the groundbreaking work Pride Equality does with LGBTQ youth, especially at school level, and was interested in learning from and with Pride Equality, so we invited the organization to join the Network in February. With the addition of Pride Equality we now have three Anglophone network members and two Francophone members, and have considerably broadened our geographic reach. QAYN is looking forward to Pride Equality’s leadership on identifying shared priorities and common strategies towards fully integrated the issues of youth ages 15 to 21 into our core program areas.

The underground nature of the work led by many grassroots LGBTQ activists, and the isolation that comes with it, make the activists vulnerable to attacks. This reality is exacerbated by the fact that most activists are not fully aware of the risks associated with their work. In our experience, young activists, in particular, often play down threats or fear that their safety concerns will be dismissed or quickly discredited by other activists. QAYN’s GBT Program Coordinator was amongst five LGBTQ activists who attended a security training organized by Front Line Defenders in October 2012, in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Subsequently, QAYN organized a one-day workshop with eight young activists in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso to briefly introduce them to basic safety measures and to collectively initiate a shared security alert system in order to reinforce individual security plans.

Creating Safe Space, Bringing a Community Together We ended the year with an amazing accomplishment -- the opening of a community center in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. This much-needed safe space, although modest in size, has an important significance to the entire community because it is the first LGBTQ center in the country. The center also serves as our Secretariat. Since its opening, numerous activities have already taken place, highlighting the relevance of its presence.

FINANCES

From its founding in July 2010 until July 2012, QAYN worked without any institutional funding. Toward the end of 2012, QAYN successfully mobilized 21,000 USD through institutional funding, half of which was from the Global Fund for Women and Urgent Action Fund Africa and was earmarked for our Activist School. The second half was awarded by the Foundation for a Just Society as a core support grant. All of the institutional funding came between July and December 2012. Isis International, our partner in the activists school program, supported the program with additional funding through their partnership with Mama Cash. QAYN’s small projects continue to be supported by individual and in-kind donations. Please note that QAYN’s fiscal year is from June 2012 to July 2013, but this annual report highlights our work from January-December 2012. Therefore, the financial statements below do not reflect our fiscal year financial statement.

2012 INCOME (January-December 2012) 2012 Income Foundation for a Just Society Isis International Global Fund for Women Urgent Action Fund-Africa Individual Donation Total Income

2012 EXPENSES (January-December 2012) USD 10,000 7,295* 6,000 5,000 4,500 32,795

2012 Expenses Program Travel Operation cost Administrative cost Fiscal sponsor fees Communications Total Expenses

USD 9,800 3,143.36 2,366 1,731.27 1,600 706 19,346.63

NETWORK MEMBERS Abuja, Nigeria: Women’s Health and Equal Rights (WHER) Lagos, Nigeria: Queer Alliance Nigeria Douala, Cameroon: Aids-Acodev Cameroon Yaoundé, Cameroon: Humanity First Cameron Freetown, Sierra Leone: Pride Equality

*: The financials presented are unaudited and combine revenue and expenses associated with QAYN operations from our current fiscal sponsor, LYRIC, as well as those associated with a joint project with Isis International.

WE THANK OUR GENEROUS SUPPORTERS AND PARTNERS

• Global Fund for Women • Foundation For A Just Society • Urgent Action Fund-Africa • Heartland Alliance • Isis International • Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC)

ADVISORS Aba Taylor-USA Bakah Aicha-Niger/DRC Cesnabmihilo Dorothy Aken’Ova-Nigeria Charles Gueboguo-Cameroon/USA Jennifer-noxolo Musangi-Kenya Pouline Kimani-Kenya Williams Rashidi-Nigeria

WE THANK OUR VOLUNTEERS John MacAllister Aicha Bakah Philippe Menkoue Stéphane Ségara Caroline Kouassiaman Charles Gueboguo Aba Taylor Williams Rashidi Iba Traoré Stéphanie Bassolé Yvette Samdoulougou Nat Mariam Manga Yela

ABOUT US QAYN is the first lesbian-led LGBTQ regional organization in West Africa, with the aim to become the hub for LGBTQ youth activists and youth-led movement building. As a loose network with five organizational members to date, we continue to grow our network, with the primarily goal of building a powerful community and coalition for collective engagement while supporting members to build their skills, self-confidence and capacities. Our Mission The Queer African Youth Networking Center works to establish a wide network of support to promote the safety and wellbeing of lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and questioning West African youth. Our Objectives • To foster communities’ understanding of the broader issues of sexuality and sexual rights in ways that recognize and respect diverse sexual orientations and gender identities; • To establish a strong network of support by identifying parallels and interconnections between our needs and those of other progressive social movements, and working in collaboration to support agendas that advance human rights for all; • To build a strong community based on mutual empowerment—through developing comprehensive training programs that build self-confidence, leadership skills and capacities of our members—with the aim that they will become engaged leaders committed to bringing social change in their respective communities. Our Values • Equality: We value societies that respect, promote and celebrate diversities, including the rights of sexual and gender minorities within their communities. We understand equality as the absence of discrimination and the promotion of fairness. • Security: We value social and economic securities that enable all citizens to access the tools required to meet their basic needs and fulfill our responsibilities. • Perseverance: We realize the daunting tasks ahead of addressing homophobia and transphobia in African cultures, and we embrace the slow and long processes to overturn the misconceptions and traditional practices that harm our communities. • Innovative Thinking: We encourage critical thinking of social issues and foster innovative approaches to promote social change. 19

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR WORK www.qayn-center.org/ www.q-zine.org www.issuu.com/q-zine

JOIN US ONLINE Facebook: QAYN: www.facebook.com/pages/QAYN-Center-The-Queer-African-Youth-Networking-Center/ Q-ZINE: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Q-zine/ Follow us on Twitter: @qayncenter

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Address: Secteur 16, Songnaaba, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Mailing address : 04 BP 511 Ouagadougou 04, Burkina Faso Email : contact@qayn-center.org

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