Donate

 

Trans Rights are Under Attack in East Africa

There is rising insecurity for trans and queer people in East Africa. The recent court ruling in Kenya registering the freedom of association for queer organizations, the anti-homosexuality bill being tabled in Uganda, clamp down on civil society in Tanzania and Rwanda, and arrest of queer people in Burundi after the president ‘ordered’ the citizens to ‘curb out homosexuality’ in Burundi. Below are some reference stories:

Please help us support our community members with emergency food, shelter, relocation and legal fees.

EATHAN – East Africa Trans Health & Advocacy Network is a network of intersex, transgender and gender non-conforming individuals and organisations in East Africa working to eliminate transphobia and improve the livelihoods of all trans diverse East Africans through research, advocacy, capacity strengthening, movement building and community empowerment.

We envision a just and equal society where all trans humans can live free from stigma and discrimination.

Our mission is to equip and enable East African trans* diverse individuals and institutions, to organize and advocate for the improvement of their health, the recognition of their gender, and the protection of their human rights; utilizing informed research and documentation, particularly on health and HIV, and by enhancing their livelihoods through capacity strengthening and empowerment.

EATHAN was formed in July 2016, and has been steadily growing ever since. Since then, we have worked on our policies & structures; formulated and now implementing our 3 year strategic plan; attended and participated in various key meetings such as AIDS conference 2016, Africa Trans Conference and others; successfully conducted and published our first research report on security and HIV among trans persons in East Africa; began a two year project with RFSL on institutional strengthening and held our first Bi-Annual EATHAN Members & Partners Forum.

The core focus of our work is embedded in our 4 pillars: research & documentation; advocacy & sensitization; capacity strengthening; movement building & community empowerment.

TO DONATE, SEE OUR MCHANGA PAGE

OR SEND TO OUR PAYPAL AC. donate@eathan.org

Your support will be highly appreciated!

Previously…

A while back, we were fortunate enough to receive donations from all over the world! Through these donations, we were able to buy binders & bra inserts and we distributed to 20 people across Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda!

Here are some of them saying thank you!

As a non-profit institution, we rely on donor funding to conduct our work. Majority of our funding is received from private funders and organizations such as RFSL, Arcus Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Hivos, COC Netherlands and UHAI EASHRI.

While such funding fuels majority of our work, some of the work we want to do cannot be funded by these donors.

We invite you to support our work!

The EATHAN Fund is a fund meant to provide safe, accessible and more importantly, FREE gender affirming services for our constituency. We serve a community of over 1,000 trans, intersex and nonbinary persons in East Africa, covering Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Being trans diverse in these countries is difficult. We live in a society that is heavily drenched in patriarchy and supposed ‘African cultural beliefs/norms’.

A majority of us struggle to be ourselves in this society. Born in bodies that don’t match our identity is one of the most difficult things to live with. The one major way we can try and align our bodies with our identities is with gender affirming hormone therapy. Hormone therapy has proved to be most effective in alleviating gender dysphoria – the mental condition that plagues almost all of us. Through effective hormone therapy, many of us will be able to exist in this society living in our truest form. We will be seen as we are, and not as we were assigned. We will have better access to social amenities, jobs, housing and other things that many of those unlike us often take for granted.

Additionally, transition material such as binders, breast inserts, gaffs, packers, STP devices and others are also of great need to the community. While the idea about “passing” among the community is a heavily contested term, passing – in a heavily patriarchal, homonormative society – is of paramount importance for most trans diverse persons. Passing allows them to blend in society and reduce chances of violence, stigma and discrimination. These materials therefore are important. However, they are expensive and – because most trans diverse people in East Africa do not have college level education – trans diverse people are broke. They don’t get hired because of how they present or a mismatch between gender presentation and identity documents.

It is important that we as EATHAN find solutions to these challenges.

This fund will go a long way towards providing this much needed service to the multitude of trans diverse folk who desperately need it.

All donors will be kept updated on the progress of the fund and its activities.

TO DONATE, SEE OUR MCHANGA PAGE

OR SEND TO OUR PAYPAL AC. donate@eathan.org

Please note that the PayPal account (info@eathan.org) is no longer active.

Your support will be highly appreciated!