Dear friends,
“You are nothing to me. Never call me mother again.”
Those are the last words I heard from my mother, before I found myself homeless and begging on the streets.
I was kicked out of school when my teachers suspected I was gay. In Tanzania, once you’re kicked out of school, you can never go back. When my uncle found out, he hit me and told me I wasn’t welcome in his home, either.
My name is Zamiri, a 20-year-old from Ikwiriri, Tanzania. During this dark time in my life, I was so desperate to escape my misery, I thought suicide was the only answer. Luckily, I found the Usalama Shelter – Tanzania’s only shelter for LGBT people.
The shelter saved my life. Because of them, I have a new home, a new family, and a new future. But I was just told that the shelter’s future may end much too soon.
Without any official funding, the shelter depends on the kindness of strangers to keep its doors open. But they’ve run out of funding. If they don’t receive €19300 by the end of this month, me and the other LGBT people living here will be back on the streets.
There’s been a huge wave of anti-LGBT bigotry from our government. In a country where it’s already illegal to be gay, just this month, Tanzania’s justice minister vowed to use social media to track down and arrest gay people. He also vowed to outlaw any charity that supports gay people.
People are afraid. We need a safe space now, more than ever.
Last year, the shelter got 120 requests for help, but could only afford to take in 12 people. There’s about 100 people on the shelter’s waiting list right now, and that number is only going to increase.
The shelter is run by LGBT Voice Tanzania, an organization fighting for the rights of LGBT people. At the shelter, they provide meals, medical help, and educational opportunities. The more help they get right now, they more people like me they can take in.
Anything raised above the fundraising goal will go towards powering campaigns just like this one.
Thanks for going All Out,
Zamiri
