page_title: Kasha Nabagesera
section_title: Activism
hierarchical_section_title: Kasha Nabagesera / Activism
caption_attribution_description: English: Kasha Jacequeline Nabagesera at panel about the African view on lgbt issues at World Pride Madrid
context_page_description: Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera
  is a Ugandan LGBT rights activist. She is the founder and executive director of the LGBT rights organization Freedom & Roam Uganda. In 2011, she received the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. In 2015, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award.
context_section_description: When she was finally finished with the University, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera and some friends founded Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG) in 2003 after witnessing and experiencing the harassment, discrimination and violence Ugandan women face because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. This pioneering organization became a first of its kind in Uganda to fight for LGBT sexual orientation and gender identity rights. Kasha led the organization for ten years, stepping down as Executive Director of Freedom and Roam Uganda the 4th of July, 2013 after ten years of leadership.
  Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera is a community-builder who loves her work and being able to give some measure of redress to the many members of the LGBT community who feel lost, rejected and alone. She also likes to give hope to her many brothers and sisters in Uganda and elsewhere, but acknowledges that it is hard right now. She loves to meet people and share common experiences that unite us, and learn from others unique lives. She speaks of her “lovely family from around the world” that she has been privileged to meet and learn from.
  Kasha says that “it’s very important that we are who we are, especially looking back in history at how our race has been undermined, it's important for us to stand up and be counted. Our black pride should never be allowed to be discounted again because of our skin colour. It is important that we work and achieve greatness for ourselves instead of waiting for others to do that for us. We cannot afford to bury our heads in the sand and feel sorry for ourselves, we need to stand with our heads high and proud for trying our best to make this world a better place for justice and equality, freedom and liberation.”
  She is considered to be the 'founding mother' of the Ugandan LGBT civil rights movement. In 1999, when she was 19 years old, she publicly campaigned to end to homophobia in Uganda, a country where homosexuality is against the law.
  In 2010, Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone published names and photo of individuals it claimed to be gay, with the headline "Hang Them". Among the names were Kasha and her colleague David Kato. The pair eventually sued the tabloid, and in doing so set a benchmark for human rights in Uganda. Nabagesera explains the precedence as an attempt to protect “privacy and the safety we all have against incitements to violence.”
  Kato was later killed following the legal battle with the publication. Nabagasera has continued the fight for gay rights in Uganda. Under the auspice of FARUG, she has fought to decriminalize homosexuality in Uganda by circumventing the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill; a bill which mandates stiff sentences ranging from prison sentences to the death penalty.  Furthermore, the bill mandates that citizens who do not expose gay and lesbians to the authorities, face up to 3 years in jail.
  In 2010, Nabagesera opened the only Ugandan bar for LGBT people; named Sappho Islands, the bar was situated in a suburb of Kampala. It closed in 2011.
  Not one to sit still, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera is now concentrating her efforts on advocacy and lobbying on behalf of Africa at the United Nations, the African Commission and European Union. She is currently working on the Project Planning, Administration, Advocacy and Leadership (PAL) project and a special program called Reclaiming the Media, to present the other side of the LGBT community to Ugandans and repeal Uganda’s recently enacted anti homosexuality law.
  Kasha receives hundreds of requests from Uganda’s LGBT citizens who are frightened and in hiding because of their governments recent enactment of anti-homosexuality laws that criminalize their identity, impose harsh prison terms and even punish their friends, families and employers for failing to turn them in to authorities. It has created an unbelievably oppressive crisis for Uganda’s LGBT community. 
  Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera and her partner, JLW, make their home in Kamapla, Uganda, and spend time together watching movies and playing board games. They have a pet German Shepherd named
caption: Kasha Jacequeline Nabagesera at panel about the African view on lgbt issues at World Pride Madrid[6]
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