“Literally, the last question is… how much will this cost? How much will I get from this? Because that then just closes your mind to so many things you could be thinking about, so for me, it’s always what… what’s of importance that will come out of this? What changes because of what I’m doing? What impact? Then, at the end of that conversation, how much money will I make from it, or how much money will I need for it?”
In this week’s very special (re)wind episode, THE IDEALISTS. podcast host and entrepreneur, Melissa Kiguwa, speaks to Wanja Muguongo, world-renowned Queer social justice activist, Yale World Fellow, and founder of UHAI, Africa's first indigenous fund created for and by LGBTI communities in East Africa. Under Wanja, the fund distributed over $12 million to LGBTI and sex worker human rights movements in East Africa. In this rich, revelatory conversation, Wanja and Melissa dive deep into what it means to raise funding to tackle deep structural and systemic discrimination on your own terms.
in the episode:
Wanja leads off the episode by painting a picture of the exponential growth of the field of participatory grantmaking in which funds and types of social justice work are directed at the community level, by the community so that the impact is felt more authentically.
Next, she discusses the broad paradigm shift in international human rights conversations and what it means to come to the table as Africans with the agency and power to make participatory grants back in Africa, while fully possessing the knowledge of what will work there and what won’t. She also flips the script by fundraising from sources that have colonized Africa and left it in debt.
Building on that, she discusses how participatory grantmaking puts the power back in the grantee’s hands. She cites the example of NGOs tending to fund the LGBTI community through the vectors of HIV, or the temporary rescue of LGBTI people in abusive situations (only for them to return to them) when it might make more sense to fund longer-term legal protection, legislation, and security strategies.
Turning the conversation to women founders, Wanja relates the intentionality of her approach to fundraising and partnerships. While her focus is very friendship-driven, she understands deeply the isolation women founders experience—especially if they are persons of color who also identify as LGBTI. You have to work so much harder to find people and connect.
Lastly, she talks about her decision to listen to her body and ultimately take a step back from UHAI at the ten-year mark, leaving the institution with a comprehensive body of work, a secretariat of people, and a set of self-sustaining systems to keep operating. And in sharing her audacious vision for the world now, she hopes to create a safer universe for those people in her life with every interaction she has, and through everything she has built, both in and out of UHAI.
Resource(s): https://uhai-eashri.org/