Support a Shelter for Transgender Women in Uganda

Happy Life Youth Empowerment Center (HLYEC) is a transgender women-led non-profit organization which was formed in 2020 to intervene on different challenges faced by trans women located in Wakiso District, Uganda. HLYEC mission is to empower young transgender women through various empowerment programs, health programs, advocacy and legal support programs for self-resilience and social recognition.

HLYEC has been operating a shelter since 2021 due to high rate of homelessness, family and community rejections, life threats and insecurities and many others.so far it has sheltered 29 transgender women. After the passing of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 (AHA) we scaled down the number of the transgender women at the shelter and since September we have seen the rise of shelter requests from the homeless transgender women and now we have so far received 37 requests to join the shelter of those who are facing different challenges mentioned above. Yet our capacity for now due to available resources we can only facilitate 10 transgender women.

HLYEC has apace which can accommodate up to 25 transgender women but due to limited resources we can only accommodate 10, living the vacuum of 15 transgender women due to lack of enough food, bedding, utilities and also the shelter lacks security cameras which hinders its capacity to monitor the securities and also HLYEC does economic activities such as modern farming like growing vegetables and rabbit rearing plus bakery in order to empower the shelter members. Therefore, due to the harsh environment towards the existence of transgender women in Uganda amidst AHA transgender women face a lot of stigma and discrimination to the extent that most of the landlords cannot shelter them and even cannot be employed. therefore, HLYEC is appealing to well-wishers to support this cause of securing transgender women as many as possible. Your support will really bring a great impact to our work.