Sean Awali  is a lawyer and human rights activist  who was raised in Mbale, Eastern Uganda. Sean grew up with many unanswered questions about his sexuality and witnessed many  injustices towards people perceived to be LGBTI identifying  in his home area - he also confesses to have been ignorant about the law and its mandate at the time.

He says he saw many  Kuchus being arrested arbitrarily and even harassed in various  ways especially by the police. These incidents motivated Sean  to join  law school - he hoped that with a more knowledgeable stance on the law, he would become a mouthpiece for queer people. During this time, he resolved to make it his mission to ease access to basic needs like health services.

While still pursuing his law degree at a Mbale based university,  Sean and friends started an NGO with the sole purpose of addressing the injustices  in access to healthcare among the key populations in Eastern districts particularly Mbale, Tororo and Sironko.

The NGO was named Triumph Uganda; they started out with their personal savings to address these challenges that LGBTI people were facing in Eastern Uganda.

Sean who is currently pursuing his bar course at the Law Development Centre hopes  that after this, he will do strategic litigation and pledges to support LGBTI Ugandans to access justice and will dedicate his career to fighting for an environment that is tolerant to all citizens.

“Serving upcountry communities can be a bit challenging because  these people lack the right channels to access information which is key in every kind of programming,” Sean shared.

He also believes that there is still a whole lot to be done especially sensitizing parents of LGBTI identifying persons on  sexual orientation and gender identity . He says that this lack of information is what leads to fall-outs in families and school dropouts for many youthful kuchus.