Johannesburg, July 18 2017 – QueerSA Social Development NPC invites the public to nominate grassroots lesbian and gay organisations to benefit from its Mandela Day fundraising drive.
QueerSA, a recently founded advocacy group for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) rights and welfare, has been running its Mandela Day fundraiser since June 28, 2017.
Sven Hourquebie, Chairperson of QueerSA, said: “If LGBTQI organisations of South Africa were to work together, the everyday LGBTQI person would experience change much sooner.
“There is a petition on Change.org to repeal section 6 of the Civil Union Act. It has been revealed that only 28.6% of Home Affairs offices have marriage officers who are willing to marry same-sex couples. The Civil Union Act that legalised same-sex marriage in 2006 allows marriage officers to opt out of registering same-sex marriages on grounds of conscience, religion or belief. So homosexual couples are still being treated as second-class citizens. We want to change that.
“Although our country has a very progressive constitution, the average LGBTQI person does not experience the advantages of the fundamental law that is supposed to protect all citizens of our rainbow nation.”
Apart from the petition to amend the Civil Union Act, QueerSA also wants to help grassroots organisations that help LGBTI people. Hourquebie said that the “corrective rape” of lesbians was an example of the hate crimes that QueerSA opposed. “That is why we invite the public to nominate organisations that should benefit from our fundraiser.”
Nj Hourquebie, Sven’s husband, said that when he started what was to become QueerSA 10 years ago, “I had no idea how desperately the Queer community needed help, not only from society at large, who we see as our allies, but also from within a very divided queer community.
“Our tagline, ‘Diversity Personified,’ was adopted because we are a very diverse community but we also don’t want to downplay the important role of our straight allies. They are our friends and family and I feel that to bring about change in society, to achieve tolerance and acceptance, we need to work together.
“The QueerSA Mandela Day fundraising drive was devised to raise funds for our programmes and campaigns that we will be launching over the next 12 months, including a Queer-focused Crisis Helpline and Drug Dependency Walk-in Centres, but we felt, in the spirit of Nelson Mandela, smaller organisations that are often overlooked at times like this could benefit from this drive. So, we pledged to give 10% or R6.70 of each R67 donation that we raise to an organisation that needs it. But Mandela Day is special and we need to recognise that.
“So, of each donation that we receive today, July 18, we are upping that to 50% or R33.50 and adding that to the amount we will be giving away on Women’s Day.”
The fundraiser, that would have culminated today, has been extended until August 8 and QueerSA will announce the names of organisations selected to benefit from its fundraiser in the run-up to Women’s Day.
Organisations can be nominated on www.queersa.com, and donations can be made using PayFast, PayPal or direct deposit into the FNB account on QueerSA’s website.
For more information, contact Nj Hourquebie, QueerSA’s Director of Programmes and Operations, by email to nj@queersa.com or on 083 976 0990.
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