Bisi Alimi
Bisi Alimi (born Adebisi Ademola Alimi on January 17, 1975 in Lagos ) is a Nigerian LGBT and HIV activist. In 2004, he was the first person in Nigeria to be publicly outed as gay .
Life
Alimi comes from a Yoruba family and grew up the third of five children.
He studied theater at the University of Lagos and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 2004. It was during this time that he began to experience problems with his sexuality. The student magazine Campus Lifestyle outed him as gay; He was previously discriminated against because of his sexuality and he had to speak to a disciplinary committee.
From the 1990s he was an activist against HIV and AIDS , as friends of his died of AIDS. He distributed condoms and sexual health information among men who have sex with men. In 2002 he joined Alliance Rights Nigeria (ARN) and became its program director for HIV and AIDS. In this position, he was instrumental in creating a master plan for the prevention of HIV among men who have sex with men in Nigeria in 2004. In 2004 he was also diagnosed with HIV.
2004 was a turning point in his life as he publicly confessed his homosexuality . This happened live on Funmi Iyanda's talk show New Dawn with Funmi, and it sparked controversy. The talk show discontinued its live format in the future and only previously recorded contributions were broadcast from now on. Alimi received countless death threats, he was disinherited from his family and gay friends also broke off contact with him because of the situation. Politicians also referred to his public coming out on television when tightening homosexuality laws in Nigeria .
For a few years Alimi tried to improve the situation for homosexuals in Nigeria. In July 2005, he and others founded the NGO The Independent Project for Equal Rights and organized projects to support LGBT youth.
In April 2007, he was forced to flee Nigeria due to persistent death threats. In 2009 he was granted asylum in the UK, where he has lived since then. He began a master's degree in global governance and public policy at Birkbeck, University of London , graduating in 2011. In the United Kingdom, too, he campaigns for LGBT rights within the African diaspora in various organizations and he is still active as an HIV activist. At the Humboldt University in Berlin he taught the course Pre and Post Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Africa .
In 2015, he founded the Bisi Alimi Foundation to support the acceptance of LGBT people in Nigeria through research and training for journalists and activists.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Portrait: "I am not a saint". In: Der Tagesspiegel. Retrieved March 23, 2019 .
- ↑ a b The Team. In: Bisi Alimi Foundation. Retrieved March 22, 2019 .
- ↑ About. In: Bisi Alimi Foundation. Retrieved March 22, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Alimi, Bisi |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Nigerian LGBT and HIV activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 17th January 1975 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lagos |