Relentless NetworQ

Relentless aims to provide safe spaces for its members to learn, connect and access essential services, as well as providing all the project activities so they can exclusively share them with their LGBTQ+ members.

Relentless has the goal to:

• Raise the status of LGBTQ+ community in Kenya, through awareness and educational resources
• Improve LGBTQ+ community self-esteem, body image, and mental health
• Provide a safe space for persecuted members
• Provide psychosocial support to members who are victims of stereotypes, in whatever form that may be
• Equip community members with the tools and confidence to advocate for themselves
• Redefine stereotypical gender roles, and encourage LGBTQ+ to pursue their goals, especially those outside of societal expectations
• Connect local chapters of LGBTQ+ organizations to a global audience where they can share resources, ideas and knowledge.

Drop-In Shelter

With increasing persecution of the LGBTQ community members lack safe spaces where they can get short term shelter. Our safe space provides accommodation, food, trauma counseling and indoor activities for vulnerable members.

We have optimized our safe house facility by including a rescue center – complete with both a physical and online library, including adequate information on sexual and reproductive health, including HIV/Aids. In this safe space, high-risk members are encouraged to learn the history of the LGBTQ+ movement as well as get a pipeline to connect them to the growing global LGBTQ+ movement.

The center is manned by trained counselors who help new members resolve their issues through:

• face-to-face counseling
• overcoming trauma
• encouraging parental counseling
• an in-house program that enhances self-esteem, recovery from trauma, depression, and suicidal attempts

We also run a Champions of Change program that allows young people to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity. The program also aims to help young people increase knowledge about their rights and develop the skills to take a stand for, and with, LGBTQ+ young people.

24-Hour Hotline

With increasing persecution for LGBTQ, most young members are afraid to visit health facilities for fear of victimization. The project has created a 24/7 hotline line that provides timely and accurate information to high risk LGBTQ members.

Developing the hotline for at-risk members has:

• greatly reduced suicidal thoughts
• provided LGBTQ+ friendly and free counseling
• facilitated trauma recovery
• offered free therapy services
• provided callers with urgent sensitization & human rights information

The hotline has also created an independent virtual safe space for crucial counseling and education for LGBTQ+ youth.

Art Therapy

Art and cultural work are powerful mediums for resistance, cultural change, and inspiration – all critical components of lasting justice movements. Story-telling, in all its various forms, is a potent tool for encouraging self-expression, facilitating healing, exploration, and self-reflection. This online space will be used to:

• share sexual and reproductive health education
• encourage members to exploit their creativity through:
  • painting
  • creative writing
  • drawing
  • mobile phone short documentaries
  • conceptual photography.

These pieces of art and creativity will not only tell the LGBTQ+ stories but will also promote diversity, build intellectual connections with a global audience and create an authentic record for future generations but will also facilitate faster recovery from recovery.

Grassroots Advocacy

Restrictions on public advocacy limit security options for  Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) defenders, who are often living and working in hostile environments, with increased physical and digital attacks. Attacks by both state and non-state actors has impacted how these defenders conduct their personal and professional lives, encroaching on their freedoms and limiting their movements

We are mobilizing like-minded HRDs into a potent grassroots advocacy movement that will push for the repeal of anti-LGBTQ+ laws and loosen restrictions on public activities as well as working towards ending criminalization and discrimination while at the same time protecting individual LGBTQ members from attack, denial of healthcare and impending homelessness occasioned by persecutions

This will ensure:

• Build and sustain leadership at the grassroots level
• Provide services to marginalized members through community collaborations
• Address structured and institutional discrimination through a variety of policy and system changes
• Promote a just society with equity inn economics, political and social rights and opportunities for the LGBTQ+ community

Q Chat Space

These online discussion groups provide young people a dedicated space to meet virtually and discuss issues relevant to their identities and experiences with other youth. To ensure safety, this is not a forum but live and chat-based online meeting that encourages exchange of ideas, networks and collaborations

You can catch up with our online presence on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/relentless-networq-30a984250/ and Twitter

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