Emergency funding for LGBTI COVID-19 victims
COVID-19 has been hard for everyone, no more so than for LGBTI people living in countries with little or no rights. Many of our brothers and sisters have experienced the dire economic consequences of this pandemic and have been excluded from emergency funding and social protection schemes provided by their government.
“This COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the situation, after the confinement and quarantine imposed by the government most of us no longer have work, we are under severe oppression within our neighbourhoods, most of us are accused of having caused all this COVID crisis by our sin…Landlords are driving some of our members out of their homes due to the lack of rent payment when we have nowhere to go since many of us have already been evicted from our families.” Funding Recipient, East Africa
PlanetRomeo Foundation’s vision is to ‘support LGBTI projects where it is need most’ and they have made a funding available to help LGBTI organisations provide basic needs like shelter, food and hygiene products. With a donation from ROMEO they were able to give emergency funding to 15 projects in 11 countries. We know that this is just a small drop as charity funding has been reduced and withdrawn for many.
“This is really a big contribution to our COVID 19 group. Thank you for supporting us once again, thank you for selecting us from the many groups you have and deciding to support us”. Funding Recipient, Uganda
Things are hard right now, but we must continue to support each other, and work hand in hand with LGBTI communities across the world to ensure that they can continue their work to improve the lives of LGBTI people in homophobic countries.