Coalition of African Lesbians [CAL] Brief
by Fikile Vilakazi

The Coalition of African Lesbians was initiated in 2003 during a Conference that was organised by the
Gay and Lesbian Archives (GALA) in South Africa. Amongst other matters that the Conference discussed,
was the lack of lesbian visibility in South Africa, Africa and the rest of the world, both within the LGBTQI
sector and mainstream society. This discussion led to the view that there is a need to form a network in Africa
that will address the needs of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women in the region. The network was therefore
formed and it was initially named the African Lesbian Alliance (ALA) and later the name changed to the Coalition
of African Lesbians (CAL). The Coalition is currently coordinated by the Rainbow Project, a lesbian and gay
organisation based in Namibia and a voluntary executive committee from different lesbian and gender based
organisations in Africa.

Since its birth, CAL has established two different projects to fulfil its mandate in relation to lesbian visibility,
namely (1) research and (2) creative writing projects. Both these projects are aimed at ensuring that lesbian
women document their own experiences and tell their own stories through the media of research and creative
writing. The research project is mainly about collection of stories through interviews, focus groups and field visits.
Lesbian activists are provided with the capacity to conduct this work. The capacity building process happens
through the leadership Institutes that CAL holds for its member organisations. This also applies to the creative
writing project. The main focus of the creative writing project is to promote visibility through the poetry,
short stories, testimonies, songs, script writing, dramatic arts, diaries and so on.

The Coalition currently has membership of organisations from South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria,
Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Namibia and a resource person form the Netherlands.
Forum for the Empowerment of Women represents South Africa in this Coalition, and is a member of the
Steering Committee.

FEW is implementing both the research and the creative writing project of CAL as part of its organisational
mandate of promoting lesbian women visibility in South Africa. The two projects are currently underway and
we need more lesbian, bisexual and transgender women to participate in this work.

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