By Sophie Wanyenze,
Queer Women Leaders Uganda- QWLU is a feminist entity that is working towards making sure minority and marginalized groups of women take up leadership spaces in political, economic and social arenas.
We are also pushing for quality, safe, affordable and Intersectional SRHR advocacy and policy influencing while putting holistic healing justice at the center of our work.

QWLU was formed in the wake of the political uneasiness, violations and the unfairness in law and policy reforms. We want to train, mentor and support minority and marginalized women to enter politics and take up leadership spaces so that we can go and advocate and push our agendas in local council spaces and Parliament.

We are also pushing for quality, safe, affordable and intersectional SRHR advocacy and policy influencing while putting holistic healing and justice at the center of our work.

In the last Uganda presidential elections we were able to support 92 minority and marginalized women in a training on transformative leadership where 72 Ugandan women stood for local council positions and 52 women went through in 12 districts in Central and Eastern Uganda local council and markets politics.

This year we were able to have our annual holistic healing week in February where we met 64 LBTQ Ugandans and shared a deep conversation on mental health and wellness. We got four counsellors to hold the week and work as follow up points incase we needed psycho social support.

We are also holding SRHR dialogues every quarter for LBQT Ugandans.

We continue to offer counseling and psycho social support in our holistic healing space.

It is important for LBQT Ugandans to have feminist leadership ideals because, the one way we can advocate and push for our mental healthcare when needed is by using our voices and skills and being a feminist led organization guides us on how to use our power and influence to change the status quo and push for the opportunities and spaces we need.

The responses so far are both positive and negative with the homphobia gate keeping syndrome but at the end of the day the passion and impact we as LBTQ people in Uganda makes us push on and be the change we want to see.

One of our biggest challenge is funding but we know it’s a trust process and with time our work will speak for itself.