Welcome to THE IDEALISTS. (re)wind,
I’m Katie Rice, Creative Director of THE IDEALISTS. and break*through. It’s amazing to think we are actually at 65 episodes of THE IDEALISTS. It’s a wonder of a show to work on, and as we edge toward 100 episodes, our team has been going through the archives, dusting off the episodes we love the most. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be bringing you our favorite conversations to celebrate and commemorate how far we’ve come.
This week’s guest is Wanja Muguongo, world-renowned Queer social justice activist, Yale World Fellow, and founder of UHAI, Africa's first indigenous fund created for and by LGBTI communities in East Africa. Under Wanja, the fund distributed over $12 million to LGBTI and sex worker human rights movements in East Africa. In this rich, revelatory conversation, Wanja and Melissa dive deep into what it means to raise funding to tackle deep structural and systemic discrimination on your own terms.
I chose this episode because Wanja paints such vivid a picture of the exponential growth of the field of participatory grantmaking where the funds and types of social justice work are directed at the community level, by the community so that the impact is felt more authentically. She discusses the broad paradigm shift in international human rights conversations and what it means to come to the table as Africans with the agency and power to distribute resources back in Africa, while fully possessing the knowledge of what will work there and what won’t. She also flips the script by fundraising from sources that have colonized Africa and left it in debt.
At its core, participatory grantmaking puts the power back in the grantee’s hands and represents an opportunity for real and exciting change. I also found it compelling how she relates the dynamic of NGOs tending to fund LGBTI communities only through the vectors of HIV, or the temporary rescue of LGBTI people in abusive situations (only for them to return to them) when it might make more sense to fund longer-term legal protection, legislation, and security strategies. This is the sort of change wrought by participatory grantmaking and direct community input.
In reflecting on her decision to listen to her body and ultimately take a step back from UHAI at the ten-year mark, leaving the institution with a comprehensive body of work, a secretariat of people, and a set of self-sustaining systems to keep operating—you see how a founder grapples with both vision and legacy.
I found this conversation riveting when I first listened to it and now, even more, as we consider how we continue to hold space for and protect LGBTI communities in the face of discrimination and danger.
You can listen to the episode here.
With gratitude,
Katie
p.s. we’ve been developing a reflection diary for your most transformative self-inquiry.
p.p.s. sign up to get the*journal in time for the holidays.
Looking to work with us? Get in touch to:
sponsor THE IDEALISTS. podcast - reach discerning, visionary women
engage break*through coaches - work with our master coaches & be on the show
coach with break*through - catalyze the world's most audacious, idealistic leaders
make THE IDEALISTS. better - be part of our brain trust