Counting Queers

By Egerton Neto — Brazil’s statistics agency is refusing to include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in its census, perpetuating the exclusion of queer people from official figures. That’s no accident: the lack of national data makes it extremely difficult for members of the LGBTQ+ community to fight for their rights. LONDON – …

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Adebisi Alimi

An LGBT advocate and HIV activist, Adebisi Alimi was the first person to ever come out as gay on Nigerian television. After an attempt on his life in 2007, he fled to the UK where he was granted political asylum. Before he left, he founded The Independent Project for Equal Rights-Nigeria, where he served as …

Meet the Fellow

Nafi Chinery

Chinery is passionate about promoting women's rights in African countries. In her role at AWDF, she works with women-led organizations to build their leadership and help them advocate for inclusive decision-making processes. Through this work, she has gained stories of successes and failures among grassroots organizations. Chinery began her career with Oxfam GB, where she …

Meet the Fellow

When Making It to 40 Is a Privilege

It was the summer of 2014, I was sitting in a boardroom with the air condition on and I was inside sweating. It was a blazing hot outside in the summer heat of London. That day I was waiting for the board meeting of Stonewall housing to start. I had just been recruited as a …

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Flying to the Rescue

British-Nigerian doctor Ola Orekunrin may be only 28, but she's already founded Nigeria's first emergency air ambulance service. From behind the wheel of her car, Ola Orekunrin calls out an apology as she makes a rapid reverse U-turn on a street in the Nigerian city of Lagos. A call just came in for an emergency …

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