Iga Isma is the executive director of Happy Family Youth Uganda. It is a human rights organisation that helps to provide safe shelter and training for the LGBT community in Uganda.
Isma put me in contact with Henry Field, a UK contact, who shared some insight into how the organisation operates and how to get involved from overseas.
This video was made via Zoom during the Covid-19 pandemic so the signal was quite poor. Apologies for the quality.
Following this, I spoke to Iga Isma more about how Happy Family Youth operates:
“Happy Family Youth Uganda started in 2016 working on issues of LGBT. We work in the Kampala and Mubende region reaching out through advocacy for health inclusion and partnered with service providers mobilising HIV prevention awareness through our interaction.
“We realised and experienced great need for support due to homeless and psychological distress for LGBT persons. We encountered stigma and discrimination that kept members unable to live peacefully and only living a mobile life based on who is willing to support you for a night. This kind of living led many to emotional breakdowns and poor mental health having to respond to such issues.
“Happy Family started a shelter to bring the survivors together with an aim of empowering and sensitising them for self-sustainability. We currently have 12 members engaged with skills and crafts knowledge as we expand activities.
“We face issues of daily basic needs and necessities that range from medical care, counselling and behavioural change support we require expertise of personnel facilitation dialogues.
“To improve members' wellbeing and understanding of self worth, such issues create a need for resources. We have supplemented expenses by selling the craft that members have been making activities medical care and job skills training.
“As Happy Family Youth, we came up with first-hand challenges which need vital solving thus we have a smooth running of activities.
“We came up with challenges which need expertise and managerial procedures to address:
Stigma and discrimination
Domestic violence
Barriers towards humanitarian
Hunger
Inaccessibility of proper hygiene
Organisation relief
“To solve these problems, an expertise approach or methodologies have been established;
Doing mobile health service provision
Online health information
Peer to peer mechanism
Provision of relief food
Provision of hygiene kits
Relief support for staff welfare.”