Bringing the "Voice" of GLBT Africans to Lambeth
By Katie Sherrod
The Episcopal Cafe
Several of us have been trying for months to figure out how to get the voices of GLBT Africans heard at the Lambeth Conference.
Getting them there physically is very difficult, because it's hard for them to get passports and visas. Many of them can't get jobs because they are gay—or in the case of straight allies—because they are sympathetic to the GLBT cause. The British immigration people don't care why they are jobless -- they just won't let them in if they don't have a job to return to.
So the idea for a Voices of Witness Africa video, similar to the Voices of Witness 2006 video produced by Louise Brooks for Claiming the Blessing, emerged. It seemed a natural way to bring the African witness into the Lambeth context. But raising money takes time, and the first bloc of funding didn't arrive until the first of June.
We videotaped their stories for a video to be shown at Lambeth to as many bishops as we can corral, and perhaps, at General Convention 2009.
We had raised enough money to get us to London, where we could interview some GLBT Nigerians who had fled there for sanctuary, and then to Uganda, and to Kenya. We had enough to get us back home, where I am now trying to compress 20-plus interviews into a tightly-structured video that doesn’t run too long, while doing justice to the stories of the courageous people we met. It is an awesome responsibility, for just by talking to us these folks are risking more than any of us privileged people can begin to understand.
My editor and I are putting our interview together in a dynamite video, but our work isn’t finished, and we are running out of money.
We need your help to pay for the rights to music and archival footage that will enhance our presentation and the delivery fees that will allow us to put our video in the hands of every bishop in the Anglican Communion.
full article
The Episcopal Cafe
Several of us have been trying for months to figure out how to get the voices of GLBT Africans heard at the Lambeth Conference.
Getting them there physically is very difficult, because it's hard for them to get passports and visas. Many of them can't get jobs because they are gay—or in the case of straight allies—because they are sympathetic to the GLBT cause. The British immigration people don't care why they are jobless -- they just won't let them in if they don't have a job to return to.
So the idea for a Voices of Witness Africa video, similar to the Voices of Witness 2006 video produced by Louise Brooks for Claiming the Blessing, emerged. It seemed a natural way to bring the African witness into the Lambeth context. But raising money takes time, and the first bloc of funding didn't arrive until the first of June.
We videotaped their stories for a video to be shown at Lambeth to as many bishops as we can corral, and perhaps, at General Convention 2009.
We had raised enough money to get us to London, where we could interview some GLBT Nigerians who had fled there for sanctuary, and then to Uganda, and to Kenya. We had enough to get us back home, where I am now trying to compress 20-plus interviews into a tightly-structured video that doesn’t run too long, while doing justice to the stories of the courageous people we met. It is an awesome responsibility, for just by talking to us these folks are risking more than any of us privileged people can begin to understand.
My editor and I are putting our interview together in a dynamite video, but our work isn’t finished, and we are running out of money.
We need your help to pay for the rights to music and archival footage that will enhance our presentation and the delivery fees that will allow us to put our video in the hands of every bishop in the Anglican Communion.
full article
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