by Gibron Rahim
“DIFFERENCE is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged…Without community, there is no liberation…But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretence that these differences do not exist.”
The powerful words of the late self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde speaks to embracing individual differences within a harmonious collective. The concept of community is a familiar one for Guyana’s LGBTQ population, who often find themselves outcasts in Guyanese society. There is power in solidarity and in the collective. It is in this same spirit that the Guyana Rainbow Foundation came into being almost 20 years ago.
The Pepperpot Magazine was able to sit down with Colleen McEwan, Executive Director of the Guyana Rainbow Foundation (GuyBow), and her team to learn about the organisation’s past and present role in the LGBTQ rights movement in Guyana, particularly as it relates to lesbian, bisexual and questioning (LBQ) women. While the Guyana Rainbow Foundation (GuyBow) has been in existence for almost 20 years, it followed in the footsteps of a group that came before it. McEwan noted that the late, great Andre Sobryan’s work in HIV education and human rights advocacy revealed the need for a support network for LGBTQ people. Thus, the “Rainbow Crew” was born.

Unfortunately, following Sobryan’s death, the Rainbow Crew became defunct. McEwan explained that she had returned from overseas around that time. Having become comfortable with herself and her identity while abroad, McEwan made the determination to either join an LGBTQ group if one existed, or to start her own on her return to Guyana. Together with former co-leading members of the Rainbow Crew, McEwan started organising informal meet-ups for members of the LGBTQ community. “I think it was more about identifying with each other and leaning on each other and trying to feel that level of support from each other.”

Eventually, the still informal group was invited to work alongside Artistes in Direct Support on the USAID-funded Guyana HIV/AIDS Reduction and Prevention Project (GHARP1). The group was invited to participate in training to serve as peer educators. Their role as peer educators meant that the group engaged other members of the LGBTQ community, primarily men who have sex with men (MSM) and commercial sex workers. McEwan pointed out that, at the time, there was a lack of documentation and guiding policies that specifically identified those persons as LGBTQ.

The group’s role as peer educators provided them with scope by enabling them to get out into communities and increase visibility. It was after these community outreaches that the name “Guyana Rainbow Foundation” came into being, along with the establishment of a more formal group from 2000. “We wanted to maintain some aspect of the name that Andre Sobryan formerly came up with, because we felt as if that was the person who actually led the way and opened the doors to all that we’re doing now,” McEwan explained.
The then group’s formal establishment was important since, by 2000, they were gaining recognition and having conversations with bodies such as the Ministry of Health, which was made possible through GHARP1. GuyBow was formally registered as a nonprofit non-governmental organisation (NGO) by 2009. Much of GuyBow’s work at that time was at the grassroots level with involvement in advocacy on behalf of the LGBTQ community and the creation of respectful and safe spaces in the communities where they lived.

After the formalities were completed in 2009, the new, formally established GuyBow was successful in bidding for a proposal that allowed it to undertake HIV- prevention work with MSM and commercial sex workers in Region Seven as a registered organisation. At the same time, GuyBow was building relationships with international organisations. McEwan related that, by that time, a Caribbean framework addressing vulnerable communities had begun to develop.

The year 2012 saw GuyBow making a shift as an organisation. In June of that year, acting together with activist Sherlina Nageer and others, the decision was made to shift focus from the entire LGBTQ community to lesbian, bisexual and questioning (LBQ) women. McEwan noted that GuyBow was no longer the only LGBTQ-serving organisation by this time. “We recognised that, amongst all of us, there was a significant gap,” she explained. “Most of the work that was being done was primarily centred on gay men.” She related that many persons within that framework totally disregarded the importance and significance of the lesbian and bisexual women who existed within those spaces.

Recognising the lack of reciprocal efforts on the part of their male counterparts to ensure that the needs of LBQ women were also being addressed, among other reasons, GuyBow took a strong stance to ensure that the empowerment of LBQ women was at the centre and the forefront of their work.

Among GuyBow’s current projects, as noted by team member Jenny, are the Caribbean Needs Assessment (CNA) Study, the Leading from the South (LFS) fund, GuyBow’s socioeconomic project and the Guyana Pride Festival. The Guyana Pride Festival is a collaborative effort funded by COC Nederland and organised by the Guyana LGBTQ Coalition, of which GuyBow is a member.

As of 2016, with support from COC Nederland, GuyBow was able to acquire a safe space which McEwan noted they have wanted throughout GuyBow’s existence. She went on to explain the purpose of the safe space: “It acts as a place of refuge for members of GuyBow who may find themselves in crisis situations. Those members are provided with a place to sleep and meals, along with links to income-generating opportunities. “It could be as simple as connecting them to a job opportunity,” McEwan said. She noted that an assessment is done for these persons, so that skill-building interventions can be undertaken if necessary. “If that’s the case then we can link them to those opportunities.” That is in addition to GuyBow’s own in-house training to prepare persons for the world of work.

GuyBow’s socio-economic project is an effort to, among other things, facilitate microloans to participants. Funded by COC Nederland, it allows GuyBow to provide training for persons that centres on the process of starting up one’s own small business. McEwan noted that GuyBow has been in contact with the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED) and the Small Business Bureau (SBB), where they have been treated with the utmost respect. She related that GuyBow has had productive meetings with these bodies to ensure that LBQ women can access their services without fear of discrimination. She was happy to report that persons, after having successfully completed in-house training and business plans, were able to access microloans from those bodies.

The business plans were reviewed both in-house as well as by a partner organisation in the United Kingdom. McEwan noted that the recipients of loans under the project are monitored to ensure that the loans are repaid and that the businesses are properly set up and run and also that the owners are able to earn a living from them. GuyBow also ascertains whether the business owners are facing discrimination or other forms of challenges and continues to provide support.

The Caribbean Needs Assessment study for LBQ women and transmasculine-presenting persons is being undertaken, with support from COC Nederland, to determine the needs of LBQ persons across the Caribbean. The study is concurrently being carried out by a total of eight Caribbean bodies with the results being used to inform future programmes at an organisational level.

McEwan noted that 2020 is the third year that GuyBow is receiving funds from LFS. Most of the funds have been allocated to a mass media campaign, sample posters of which can be seen on the GuyBow office walls. McEwan recalled that some of the posters have been placed at bus stops across the country. One of those bus stops was vandalised in 2018. Nevertheless, GuyBow is undeterred and will continue the campaign with more posters currently in production. “These are messages that were created right here by the women of this organisation coming out of training that was led by Sherlina Nageer.”

Discrimination continues to be a problem faced by LBQ women, and the entire LGBTQ community in Guyana. McEwan told the Pepperpot Magazine that, from the perspective of GuyBow, the incidents have been minimal as they operate from a place of professionalism. She pointed out that they approach businesses as customers seeking a service, nothing more and nothing less. Nevertheless, she related that there are members who have faced various levels of job discrimination. Late last year a member was turned away from a job interview even though she was neat and clean in appearance simply because she wore attire to the interview that is traditionally considered men’s wear. The interviewer, who was not Guyanese, was rude and disrespectful in his dismissal.

By far one of the greatest challenges facing GuyBow is that there are no laws to protect LBQ women or the entire LGBTQ community. McEwan pointed out that GuyBow and other LGBTQ organisations in Guyana have undertaken human rights advocacy and training at workplaces towards coming to a common understanding of the rights of LGBTQ persons and the ways those workplaces can provide safe environments and protection for LGBTQ employees. “But the bottom line is that, without a few understanding and humane persons within those spaces, there are no protections,” she said emphatically, “because the law that governs our country does not provide those protections for us.”
Despite the challenges, GuyBow is not daunted. “We have the capacity to overcome them. What we need more than anything else is for the laws of Guyana to be reflective of real inclusion, of real equality. We want it to state clearly that it is not right to discriminate against anyone based on their sexual orientation or their gender identity. And if that is in place I believe that most other things will fall into place.”