Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Wood slave on the computer screen completely ignoring me The young man said that people could talk all they want in the fora and workshops, but there a lot of people are frightened to speak out and that is why so much stuff happens. I am supposed to teach them advocacy skills soon and I am afraid of the difficulty because they do not really want to be advocates and you cannot teach courage really. The last few months, weeks, days I have been dealing with fear without dealing with it and as multiple layers of things start happening I realise that even with a big mouth and fingers quick to type.. so many things I am in fear of and I did not realise how much stress is brought about the anticipation of a frightening incident and the stress of also trying to say 'get that out of your mind.. no self-fulfilling prophecy'. I fear that I will not be able to find work as I have not been able to develop 'marketable' skills due to unplanned circumstances.   I fear that I ...

 The man at the back raised the opening lines "There comes a time when we heed a certain call When the world must come together as one There are people dying And its time to lend a hand to life.." and forty people joined in singing We are the World. Murder and violence The murder of Dwayne Jacobs and others in Jamaica, the murder of Delon Melville in Guyana who had received threats because of his perceived homosexuality, the attacks on others , mobilised by mobs and often with impunity was the background to a C all to Action : Everyone has the right to be! initiated by the CatchAFyah Feminist Network.  In a Caribbean in which no convictions have been made laid, and where the Churches muttering that their version of love means no one should be attacked but tempering that with 'homosexuality is an abomination'  apparently worse than the sin of righteous murder. Galtung's triangle of violence Guybow, the LBT Women's Network of Guyana and friends d...

(These questions were posed by a journalist who wanted to know more about gay rights in the Caribbean after reading the report : Dangerous Liaisons - The American Religious Right & Criminalisation of Homosexuality in Belize ) 1) What is your age, current job title and responsibilities? I am 42 years old. I work as an independent contractor . I have been involved in the work against gender based violence and child abuse, since 2002 in LGBT activism  I am involved in different activities , including the co-ordination of the Caribbean International Resources Network .  One of the recent projects is the Theorizing Homophobia in the Caribbean collection which contains several activist reports and other items. 2)   How did you get involved in LGBT activism? What’s your personal goal? In 2001, Guyana was going through a constitutional reform process. There was an amendment which would include 'sexual orientation' as one of the grounds for non-discriminatio...

A man came out and asked me if I was on one of the committees dealing with women. He wanted to know why I never took up the Alesie advertisement in which Joel Gansham mocks a woman for her size. He said that it was sickening that one of "them "would mock a real woman. I asked him whether he had done anything about it and he said no. The room at Akwaba was packed the Sunday morning. I missed part of the first panel presentation. The Ghana Day Committee had organised a one day conference on Sunday 4 August, 2013 about "The State of the Black African in Guyana" . It seems the Guyana had always had a Ghana Day celebration but it had wavered over the years.. Ghana being the first African country to gain independence. I went because I was curious.. and because I also wish that there could be a conversation about the status of the coolie in Guyana right now.. given all the ideas that coolies are doing well. The last time there was a public coolie conversation was wh...