Brian Okollan

Kenya, CAHR, Autumn 2017

Brian Okollan was born and brought up in a nomadic family of 11 siblings in a rural village in northern Kenya. He is the only son who managed to access formal education against resistance to modern education from the community and the family.

Having been born and brought up in this hardship conservative environment, growing up identifying as a member of the LGBTI community was never easy. Many LGBTI persons in his home background face a lot of discrimination from both the church and the local community, and additionally they encounter repressive government laws and rejection and disownment from families.

We will only make a difference in the fight against homophobia in a rural set up when we understand homophobia, tell our lived realities, and involve the perpetrators as agents of peace.

Due to lack of all basic support structures for this vulnerable population, the killing of LGBTI people in his community, and barbaric cultural corrective practices among others, Brian co-founded a rural based advocacy group to help mitigating this suffering.

In his work as the director of the organisation he has faced a lot painful experiences, including the death of his four co-founders through homophobia related cases. Brian believes that we will only make a difference in the fight against homophobia in a rural set up when we understand homophobia, tell our lived realities, and involve the perpetrators as agents of peace.

Brian is attending the human rights defenders programme at the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York to explore the possibility of his life time dream to document lived realities of LGBTI persons in the rural set up. This is aimed at changing community perceptions that supporting LGBTI people is a foreign agenda aimed at corrupting young African persons. In his research project at the Centre he aims at producing a rural based training manual that can be used in hard-to-reach areas where resources to organise formal trainings are scarce.