We are UHAI EASHRI—the East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative, or simply UHAI. We believe in African activist voice in resourcing the struggle for equality, justice and dignity for Africa’s sex workers and sexual and gender minorities. We are a game-changer: we are changing the narrative of how Eastern African movements are resourced, to one of ownership and self-determination by the very activists who live that struggle.

Established in 2009, UHAI is Africa’s first indigenous activist fund for sex workers and sexual and gender minorities. We support civil society organising for and by sex workers and sexual and gender minorities with: flexible and accessible grants; capacity support; support for Pan-African organising and advocacy, including support for activist-determined convening; and knowledge building and documentation.

UHAI is the largest funder of Eastern Africa’s civil society organising for sex workers and sexual and gender minorities. UHAI is the first funder of a majority of activist organising in Eastern Africa. We are committed to identifying and supporting young, nascent ideas, sustaining funding, and accompanying that funding with capacity support in order to grow activist organisations to the kind of structural integrity that attracts further funding.

Since our founding, UHAI has supported organising in the five East African countries of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Following movement requests and research in the previous strategic period, in 2016 UHAI will introduce support to Ethiopia, and we are undertaking a landscape analysis of organising in the Democratic Republic of Congo towards considering introducing support there too.

We also recognize that in order to make significant progress in attaining equality, justice and dignity, it is imperative that our work contributes to and is linked to wider global and Pan African struggles. We therefore collaborate and engage with other civil society institutions and networks at continental and international levels.