For security reasons they’ll keep the location of the Pride parade secret until the last minute
Organizers of the first Pride parade in a refugee camp will defiantly return despite violence after the inaugural event.
Mbazira Moses and his organization, Refugee Flag Kenya, put together the 2018 Pride at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.
Kakuma is one of the world’s biggest refugee camps and has a sizeable population that identifies as LGBTI. Many of the LGBTI people come from Uganda where gay sex is illegal.
Last year’s Pride festival went off with a hitch and proved a great success. But organizers then received death threats and violence afterwards.
‘If you don’t leave the camp we are going to kill you one by one and we mean it,’ a note to LGBTI people in the camp read.
Kakuma Pride
But Refugee Flag Kenya is not intimidated and plans to make the 2019 Pride event bigger than last year. Mbazira decided to engage local LGBTI groups and businesses in nearby Nairobi.
‘This time our plan is to involve the Kenyan community and activists in our pride event so that it creates strong solidarity, togetherness and awareness as an LGBTQ community,’ Mbazira told Gay Star News.
‘We plan to partner with security concerned agencies and we don’t plan to disclose where the event shall be to any one apart from the organizing committee.
‘We would like to inform the public that this year’s pride shall much exciting and full of life because we plan to involve in a lot of partners who have so many ideas and are willing to see the success of the event come true.’
Along with a Pride parade, the Kakuma Pride will host a trans party as the marquee event. The trans party will happen at a gay club in Nairobi. During the party a Mr and Miss Pride will be crowned and will also feature a beauty pageant.
Last year’s Pride attracted a lot of negative attention from homophobes and transphobes. But Mbazira believed it forced local Kenyans to ask why it took refugees risking their own lives to host the country’s first Pride parade.
‘It was the first pride in Kenya, so Kenyans asked themselves why a refugee had to stand up and put on a brave event,’ he said.
The second Kakuma Pride will run on 27 June with organizers crowdfunding to cover the costs of running the event.
by Shannon Power
Source – Gay Star News
