Funding Addresses Inequity in PEP, PrEP and ARV Uptake

Why would one organization purport to be the "only" one out there serving LGBTIQQ while actually there are quite many doing all the drudgery plus more drudgery? Is it because funders tend to like to work with organizations which have fancy offices and Land Cruisers? Is it the norm now?

In Uganda, there is a naked PEP/PrEP/ARV uptake inequity which is promoted by a funding insincerity.  Also, the funding is not catering to the exigent factors affecting  this uptake of PEP/PrEP/ARV.

We bring you an experience broken down in the human interest story as follows:

This year (2018), we have had 25 beneficiaries with whom we had to initiate PrEP, other social factors come into play. For instance, we do not receive any funding yet we work with LGBTIQQ/MSM/WSW and their sexual partners in Uganda. We are told one has to be in the good books of some organizations which funders rely on to reference/vet other organizations. Can you imagine that? The scale used to vet an organization is by using other competing organizations! Deplorable!  The organizations we have worked with before we even heard of funding from say, PEPFAR, DANIDA, DAID, DFID.... way back in early 2000's are now turning around to deny us a much needed cake! We are left out of any funding opportunities but we have relied on friends in USA, Germany, Netherlands, Brazil, Kenya, Sweden, UK and other well wishers via Go Fund Me. Dear funders, we kindly ask you to give us an audience too. We have some of the best monitoring tools and we have trained some of those organizations you are funding. We ask ourselves, when they have your ear, what do they speak about us?

Secondly, the other social dynamics faced by one who has to take PrEP for good mean that they have to have stable housing, food security and a job. We work with LGBTIQQ and this is not possible for them. Some LGBTIQQ are living with partners who are HIV Positive, others are bisexual, some are discordant bisexual couples. 

There is a web of stigma to overcome around these scenarios. In some cases we had to also evacuate the beneficiaries to safer housing. It means counselling, treating trauma and having a house on the ready where beneficiaries like these ones can have a safer healing path. Because they were victims of corrective sexual intercourse used under the pretense of corrective and healing acts, they are scared of their own relatives! This can become a case to report to the police or courts but in Uganda this is so difficult. All victims do not want to report the relatives or perpetrators of corrective rape. The lawyers we contacted to take on these kinds of cases are dismissive.

13 of the cases did not even know they could use PrEP and luckily enough we were able to reach out to them within a 24 hour window to initiate PEP/PrEP. All of them live outside Kampala City Environs. The farthest beneficiary is 45 miles away! Thanks to the online service and the ability to send money directly to beneficiaries using our Whatsapp platform, WorldRemit and Western Union money remittance services. All the LGBTIQQ Living with HIV we are serving are fully attached to a clinic, an income generating activity and have access to materials helping in decision support.  We have used $ 17,400.00 received between January-June 2018 and this has helped our organization provide support to 176 beneficiaries.

We suggest funders should desist from giving so much money to "one" or "two" organizations.

Instead provide money to 50+ CBOs which are at grass-root level. This will help build a critical mass of human rights defenders who are empowered to demand services as well engage in self determination. This means that the culture of entitlement exhibited by the "one" or "two" continuously funded organizations will be replaced by a fictive kinship and responsibility to end HIV when the "50+" CBOs are funded. Recognize organizations that promote information, education and communication through different social media platforms. Diversify happiness and rewards. Thanks