Together for Rights and Sustainable Development (THREAD) Initiative is an MSM-led LGBT rights organization from Nigeria. It focuses on mobilizing the LGBT community in Nigerian villages and rural communities.
Nigeria is a very religious and socially conservative country, where LGBT people face public hostilities and homophobia. LGBT communities lead an underground existence. Besides that, the Hisbah, a religious police force, enforces the Sharia Law in Northern Nigeria. Homosexuality is a serious crime and punishable by stoning to death.
PlanetRomeo Foundation is funding THREAD Initiative’s project Networking and Mobilization for Sustainable Rights so they can establish community-based networks in 6 villages in Kano State, a strongly religious northern state. THREAD Initiative already successfully established community-based networks in three other states, which provide a higher chance for success with this project.
A total of 720 LGBT people will receive trainings focusing on several topics, such as, how to advance their rights, develop, and organize the LGBT community on a local level. They will also learn how to become peer educators to pass on knowledge to other villages and how to avoid confrontations with law enforcers.
Once these networks have been established, THREAD Initiative will connect them to national media outfits, other gay rights organizations and progressive lawyers.
