LEGABIBO CEO reflects on first year in office
Chakalisa Dube | Tuesday August 16, 2022 06:00
Moruti told Mmegi recently that LEGABIBO initiatives are mainly funded by donors. “The private sector partnership is taking shape as we are seeing the recent support by Incepta Communications, Debswana, DTCB, Standard Chartered Bank, and other organisations in the pipeline,” Moruti highlighted.
Moruti, who just completed a year in office, noted that LEGABIBO is now enhancing its visibility and awareness in the media and community space through its recently strengthened education and awareness department.
He said: “While we have made significant inroads in addressing the more obvious forms of discrimination that LGBTIQ+ people face with the very little funding support, more needs to be done for sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics to become entirely consequential in terms of perception, treatment, access, movement, and progress in the society.
That is why we have strengthened our education and awareness department.” Moruti also said the organisation has been doing well in terms of offering the necessary support to the LGBTIQ+ community.
“To date through strong partnerships with local and international partners we have established five drop-in centres across the country where we service over 7,000 LGBTIQ community members with socio-economic engagements, health, and prevention services including HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, counselling services, and other healthcare needs,” he said.
He added: “My leadership has led to outstanding partnerships with local and international stakeholders. These partnerships have helped LEGABIBO to impact the lives of those we serve in tremendous ways, including providing health care, designing support services to those in the LGBTIQ+ community, and educating community members.” LEGABIBO also provides psychosocial support through its relationships with USAID. The most notable goal of the initiative is to create linkage opportunities for members of the LGBTIQ+ communities to access psychosocial support services.
The organisation also has in-house counselling services that are not only open to the LGBTQ+ community but also to the community at large. The organisation also boasts a safe house for LGBTQI+ persons affected by Gender-Based Violence or those that may be experiencing discrimination. Moruti explained that one of the key achievements of his tenure was driving the LGBTQI+ to be involved in one of the COVID-19 response initiatives where they volunteered to assist those in home isolation in Kasane.
That was at the height of the pandemic last year.
He said: “With focus on our strategic pillar of strengthening people and community, I have also pushed for strengthened relationships with the government including engagements with the Botswana Police, the Ministry of Health, the National AIDS and Health Promotion Agency, and the private sector to increase awareness by raising awareness and capacities to deal with LGBTIQ+, phobic hate crimes and inclusion.”