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June 2026

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umuntu is a bulletin in black and white for friends and funders of the Other Foundation.

Everyone should be free to live a safe and dignified life, have a family and make their contribution to society. The Other Foundation works to change the views, practices and institutions that prevent people - because of who they are or who they love - from being able to do that in southern Africa. We gather support for those who are working to advance equality and social inclusion of homosexual and bisexual women and men, as well as transgender and intersex people - and we give support in a smart way that helps groups to work better for lasting change.

We are Family

It's 20 years since marriage equality became the law in South Africa, marking the culmination of years of brave organizing and activism. Today, there are renewed efforts by anti-democracy groups to reverse such hard-won freedoms.

Designed to incite moral panic, they shame parents into harming or rejecting their LGBTI children, prevent many people from living an authentic life in a legally recognized commitment to whom they love, and make having a family an experience of repression and exclusion. Africa is seen as a fertile frontier for proxies to propagate their plan, mostly using religious identity to drive social injustice claiming that reflects African 'family values'.

However, the practice of ‘family’ in southern Africa today resists hate. New information about how attitudes to LGBTI people have changed over to last 10 years in South Africa for example, shows a marked increase in positive attitudes to LGBTI people – including attitudes to marriage equality. People’s attitudes to LGBTI people are driven mostly by their experience of being in families, and those who have a family member whom they know to be a LGBTI person have more inclusive attitudes than others. Increasingly, families here are reclaiming being safe and inclusive places where every family member belongs, and where family members want the best for each other – not harmful places shaped by fear and rejection. Family, in its authentic African sense, remains the base for inclusive community development in our part of the world despite the efforts to reverse that.

The details of this new information, gathered with South Africa's Human Sciences Research Council, will be released by the Other Foundation at the end of June 2026. It will be compared against similar information released in the Foundation's Progressive Prudes report on attitudes to LGBTI people 10 years ago.

The Civil Unions Act that legalized same-sex marriage in South Africa was signed into law by the former deputy president of South Africa, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, when she was the acting president of South Africa 20 years ago. To remember what signing the Act into law meant for her then, and discuss what it signifies for us today as we face renewed hostility, the former deputy president and head of UN Women visited the Foundation.

The visit reaffirmed inter-generational community and solidarity, and inspired renewed energy in a time of orchestrated hostility to LGBTI and other vulnerable people.

MambaOnline appropriately described the occasion as "part reflection, part strategy session" about a "defining political moment in post-apartheid South Africa", characterized by "moments of laughter, personal reflection and political honesty, but also a recognition that queer liberation has always been tied to broader struggles for dignity, democracy and equality."

Former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Edwin Cameron, who in Johannesburg 36 years ago kicked off Africa's first Pride with the iconic activists Simon Nkoli and Bev Ditsie, joined the gathering.

The Norwegian ambassador to South Africa, Anne Kristiansen, and Musawenkosi Tshuma from the Canadian High Commission in South Africa also joined the occasion.

Johannesburg Pride – Africa's first Pride March, 13 October 1990

Already then in 1990, as the placards in the pictures tell, family life and marriage equality were part of the struggle for acceptance and equality. It took 6 years before discrimination based on sexual orientation was protected by the South Africa's Constitution and 16 years before marriage equality became law.

Still too often though, the places where LGBTI people most immediately experience exclusion, discrimination, and violence is in our families, religious groups, and workplaces. The Other Foundation remains committed to supporting those who continue to work at great risk on the frontlines, to change that experience across southern Africa even in the face of organized subversion.

Courting Marriage in Botswana and Mauritius

Picture credit: Kefilwe Monosi/The Guardian

Momentum for more marriage equality is building in southern Africa. In Botswana, Bonolo Selelo and Tsholofelo Kumile (pictured) have filed a High Court petition for the right to marry. Botswana's national LGBTI anchor organization, LEGABIBO filed an application to support the petition as a 'friend of the court'.

In Mauritius, LGBTI groups are making the case for marriage equality. In an initial win, the president of Mauritius' national human rights commission, Satyajit Boolell, declared, "Who are we to prevent two loving people from being united in marriage?"

The national human rights commission is expected to shortly release a report on marriage equality in Mauritius. Hopefully, the report will prepare the way for the legalization of same-sex marriage in Mauritius.

Where the Money Goes

Gathering Public Support for Marriage Equality in Mauritius

Picture credit: Out Moris

With support from the Foundation, Collectif Arc-En-Ciel, Out Moris and the Young Queer Alliance are gathering public support for marriage equality in Mauritius. They have used data from the national survey of public attitudes to LGBTI people commissioned by the Other Foundation to do that. In addition, the groups have done international legal research to build the case for legalizing marriage equality, and convened LGBTI and ally groups to chart the way forward.

Bring Your Father to Pride

Picture credit: MambaOnline.com

With support from the Foundation, Parents, Families and Friends of South African Queers (PFSAQ) led the establishment of a new southern African regional network of parents and families of LGBTI people, providing vital support amongst families within and between countries in the region to counter discrimination where it is often most painful. Launched in November 2024, the network includes groups from 9 countries.

Picture credits: PFSAQ

In 2025, with support from the Foundation PFSAQ launched the Bring Your Father to Pride campaign, with an initial focus on Soweto Pride. The campaign mobilizes fathers, brothers, and uncles of LGBTI people to visibly show support for their LGBTI children and siblings during Pride. This followed preparatory work in several provinces of South Africa, including KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Gauteng, and the North West province.

Strengthening Families in Mozambique, Malawi, Eswatini, and Botswana

Picture credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA via Shutterstock - Zanele Muholi walks in with the ancestors,
New York Times

In Mozambique, the Foundation is supporting Caminhos do Arco Iris to counter discrimination within families by setting up a support network that equips families to understand LGBTI experiences. The organization has a media campaign to raise awareness about discrimination against LGBTI people in families and offer support to LGBTI people who experience family exclusion.

Picture credit: Manerela+

Supported by the Foundation, Manerela+ works with religious leaders in Malawi to support families and public service providers such as the police, to protect LGBTI people from violence and discrimination.

Picture credits: PFSAQ

In Botswana, the Foundation supports the Agang Community Network to build a support network amongst parents of LGBTI people. The network facilitates reconciliation between parents and their LGBTI children in situations where relationships are strained. It does that in a transformative way that empowers parents to become champions in advocacy for the freedom, equality, and inclusion of their LGBTI children.

Picture credit: Parents Unite and Care for All Children

Parents Unite and Care for All Children (PUCAC) in eSwatini works with the Council of Swaziland Churches and TranSwati to build a national support and advocacy network of parents of LGBTI people. The network successfully advocated for LGBTI children to return to school after the national minister of education expelled students for being homosexual. PUCAC's work is supported by the Other Foundation.

Intersex Struggles to the Fore

Picture credit: Facebook – In loving memory of the pioneering intersex activist, Dimakatso Sebidi

Many families go through severe distress when coerced into choosing invasive but medically non-essential surgery on their intersex babies, as a result of rigidly enforced societal gender norms.

In line with the Foundation's investment approach, organizing and advocacy by intersex people has moved to the forefront of progress in several parts of southern Africa. Intersex groups across the region are working to prevent medically non-essential genital mutilation of intersex babies and to promote the legal recognition of intersex people.

The Southern Africa Intersex Forum was established with the support of the Other Foundation. It now includes intersex groups from 11 countries in the region including Angola, and has supported the historic registration of Eswatini's first intersex organization.

The Southern Africa Intersex Forum used the findings about national public attitudes to LGBTI people in several countries, commissioned by the Foundation, to inform its advocacy strategy on intersex genital mutilation and legal recognition of intersex people. The members of the Forum have achieved extraordinary results in a short time.

For example, the Intersex Community of Zimbabwe has successfully advocated with others for the Zimbabwean government to initiate a review of policies and laws that are harmful to intersex people, towards legal recognition and protection of the human rights of intersex people. The Intersex Society of South Africa partnered with the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright to launch a public campaign against harmful medical practices in South Africa, resulting in the South African Department of Health undertaking an internal investigation into the complaints. TransSwati is running a campaign targeting teachers and parents in eSwatini on the impacts of discrimination against LGBTQI+ students (especially intersex and transgender students) with reference to school dropout rates. TranSwati is collaborating with the Swaziland National Association of Teachers, Parents Unite and Care of All Children (PUCAC), the eSwatini national human rights commission, and the national department of home affairs to document and address practices that are harmful to intersex people.

Safe and Thriving at Work

Image credit: LGBT+ Management Forum

Other than their families and religious communities, many LGBTI people look to their workplaces as environments where they might be valued for who they are, and be safe. Yet, workplace and broader economic inclusion of LGBTI people is still a work in progress, requiring deeper and wider investment.

The Foundation supports South Africa's LGBT+ Management Forum to produce a national workplace equality index that measures progress on LGBTI inclusion practices amongst participating corporates in South Africa. The latest South African Workplace Equality Index was released in May 2026, naming McKinsey & Co as the highest rated progressive LGBTI employer in South Africa, followed by Vodacom, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and Absa. The index is a formative rather than punitive tool to enable companies to improve their practices over time.

Separately, the Foundation supports South Africa's National Labour and Economic Development Institute (NALEDI) which, through the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), is facilitating the establishment of a national network of LGBTI workers in South Africa and the growth of LGBTI awareness and organizing amongst trade union members in Eswatini and Lesotho.

As a result, COSATU made a strong statement of solidarity with LGBTI people in eSwatini during its May Day rally in Johannesburg on 1 May 2026, at the time that King Mswati III declared that same-sex relationships will not be accepted in eSwatini during his rule.

Call for Grant Applications

The Foundation invites applications for grants from organizations in 13 eligible southern African countries to support work that repositions LGBTI organizing and advocacy in a changing context, uses data-based evidence to counter harmful narratives or positively change social attitudes to LGBTI people, develops public advocacy campaigns to advance the equality and inclusion of intersex people, lesbian women, and transgender people in collaboration with allies, and/or implements scaled-up public advocacy campaigns in collaboration with allies. The Foundation intends to give about ZAR 30 million in grants in this round of grantmaking. The closing date for submission of applications is Friday 3 July 2026.

Click here to read the full call for grant applications and find out how to apply.

Meet Our Team

Noma-Gcina Mtshontshi

New Trustee

Noma-Gcina is a lawyer in private practice, specializing in legal frameworks and forensic investigations on procurement and labour relations. She is skilled in using information management technology for business intelligence, and was an active member of the Gay and Lesbian Organization of Pretoria (now known as Out LGBT) where she founded the Uthingo Women's Group. She is also the executive director of Xhamela Development Services, a skills development company she founded in 2009.

Lesego Nchunga

Policy Advocacy Officer

Lesego worked as the senior associate for southern Africa at the Human Dignity Trust, a women's socio-economic rights lawyer at the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA), the managing partner at her law firm Nchunga & Associates, and a partner at the law firm Dow & Associates. She has served as a senior litigation expert for the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. She holds a Bachelor of Laws degree and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cincinnati.

The work of the Other Foundation would not be possible without the generous support and solidarity of our donors. We are grateful to them all.

AARON SCHWINDT - ABRI PEROLD - ADRIAN COMAN - AGNES NYGREN - ALAN ROBERTS - ALBERT LOUW - ALEX RAWLINGS - ALEX ZIMPER - AMANDA GEYER - ANATHI SHOSHA - ANDILE MZINYATI - ANDREA MAHARAJ - ANDREW HOWARD - ANN-MARIE GOLIATH - ANTOINE PAPAYYA - ASHLEY GREEN-THOMPSON - AYANDA BALLENSIEFEN - BARBARA BOHLE - BARBARA WRIGHT - BEN EYRE - BEN SHAPIRO - BLANCHE TING - BOKANG MAROBA - BONGANI KHUMALO - BONGILE LECOGE - BONGINKOSI MAHALA - BRADLEY FORTUIN - BRENDA YENI - BRETON ALBERTI - BRETT PYPER - BRIAN HLONGWA - BRIAN OLSON - BRIAN SIBEKO - BRUCE COURIE - CARINA CAPITINE - CARL WOCKE - CARLA SUTHERLAND - CARLY BOGEN - CAROLINA SHIELDS - CATHERINE HENDRICKS - CHANTELLE DE SOUSA - CHESLIN TWIGG - CHRIS NESSLING - CHRIS TAUTE - CHRISTOPH MINKE - COBUS BENADE - CONSTANCE MASEHLA - CONSTANCE MATSHENE - CRAIG ABRAHAMS - CRAIN SOUDIEN - DANA GAMPEL - FIDELITY CHARITABLE - DANIEL VAN WYK - DARREN KELLY-LOULIE - DARRYL HOWARD - DAVID DAVIDS - DAVID PRESSMAN - DAVID RYAN - DEAN EBDEN - DEBORAH BAILEY - DEE KENNY - DEON GROENEWALD - DIMITRI MARTINS - DNA BRAND SOLUTIONS - DONALD NXUMALO - DONALD STPIERE - EBEN LASSEN - ELIDJA SITOE - ELZE VAN ACHTERBERGH - EMMA KAYE - ERIC SCHMIDT - EUSEBIUS MCKAISER - FANNEY TSHIMONG - FEISAL ISRAEL - FINN SULLIVAN - GARTH FRENCH - GAYLENE PETERS - GEORGE MURUMBA - GERALD KRAAK - GINA TAGLIERI - GLENDA NOEMDOE - GOOGLE BENEVITY - GRAHAM PATRICK - GRAEME WILKINSON - GUILLIAN CIRHUZA-KOKO - HAFEEZA RASHED - HARRIET TOLPUTT - HAZEL DE WET - HEETEN KALAN - HEINE VAN WYK - HERBIE AUCAMP - INGRID TUFVESSON - INKA VON STERNEFELS - ISABEL GOODMAN - ISE BOSCH - ISRAEL MQINGWANA - ITAI MUNYARADZI - ITUMELENG MAMABOLO - JACKIE HLONGWANE - JACQUELINE HART - JASON BILOG - JAY BADZA - JEAN PAUL WARMOES - JEFF ARNSTEIN - JODY COLE - JODY JACOBS - JOE MABIO - JOE SCIORTINO - JOELINE HLONGWA - JOHAN FOURIE - JOHAN MINY - JOHN FRENCH - JOHN HARVEY - JON STRYKER - JONATHAN COHEN - JORG HASSENBACH - JOSEPH ROCK - JP POTGIETER - JULIANE HIESGEN - JULIE MOOSA FLETCHER - JUNIOR SIDZUMO - JUSTIN GOODMAN - KAITLIN DAVID - KARABO LEDIGA - KARABO NOINYANE - KEITH MUKAMI - KEVIN CHANG - KGOMOTSO KGASI - KHOLEKILE NDAMASE - KOBUS BOOYSEN - KRISTINE STALLONE - KUTLWANO MAGASHULA - LALI MOLEYA - LAME OLEBILE - LAURIE ADAMS - LEBO MOTHIBE - LEE-ANN CHAIN - LERATO MOLEFE - LESEGO NGOBENI - LINDA JACOBS - LINDIWE ZIKHALI - LIOPELO MAPHATHE - LORING MCALPIN - LOUIS FOURIE - LUCKYBOY MKHONDWANE - LUIZ DE BARROS - MACKENZIE SCOTT - MAKGANO MAMABOLO - MALUSI MAKHATHINI - MAMOHALE DIMEMA - MARC ABRAHAMS - MARC FLETCHER - MARC VAN BERGEN - MARINUS TERBLANCHE - MARION GREEN-THOMPSON - MARIUS VOS - MARK CANAVERA - MARY SIMONS - MCLEAN KWABE - MELODY MEMELA - MICHAEL ADEE - MICHAEL EDDY - MICHAEL FIELD - MICHELLE ADAMS - MIGUEL DE BRITO - MIRRIAM EDDING - MOLEBATSI TUKA - MPHO THULARE - MUZI MALINDISA - NDABA FUNDI - NDUDUZO NYANDA - NDUMISO MNGOMEZULU - NEDBANK PRIVATE WEALTH - NEIL MAYER - NEO MODISAKENG - NEVILLE GABRIEL - NEVILLE JEFTHA - NEVILLE MOUNTJOY - NHLANHLA NDABA - NKULULEKO NZMANDE - NOAH BERNSTEIN - NOLAN VAN ROOY - NOMA MOTSHOTSHI - NOMZAMO ZONDI - NONTOKOZO MADONSELA - NOMA MTSHOTSHI - NORMAN MEKGOE - NOXOLO HLONGWANE - NTOMBI KUNENE - ODETTE RAMSINGH - OLWETHU MLAWU - OUMA TEMA - OWEN MOKOENA - PATRICIA WATSON - PATRICK DE BREE - PEDRO RAMOS - PETER GEYER - PETROS ABRAHAM - PHUMI MASHIGO - PIERRE BUCKLEY - PIETER BASSON - REID WILLIAMS - RHINO AFRICA TOURS - RINALDO BOTHA - ROZ LEE - RUAN GOURLEY - RYAN VOLKYN - SAKKIE PRETORIUS - SAMUEL SHAPIRO - SANDRA SIANE - SANDY MOUNTJOY - SEBENZILE NKAMBULE - SELLO NZAMA - SHAKA SISULU - SHARI TURITZ - SHAUN BOOTH - SHAUN VILJOEN - SHEKESHE MOKGOSI - SHELDON PENTZ - SHEREEN JAMES - SIBUSISO MALUNGA - SIMO MVINJEWA - SINENHLANHLA LUTHULI - SIPHO MTHATHI - SIPHOKAZI NOMBANDE - SISANDA MSEKELE - SIVU YISIWE - SIYA KHUMALO - SIYA NTSALUBA - SLOBODAN RANDJELOVIC - SOLOME LEMMA - SPENCER ECKSTEIN - STEFAN RIEKERT - STIAN LUDIK - STUART SCHEAR - SUE SOAL - SUPRIYA KALIDAS - SYLVESTER CHAUKE - TAKALANI MADZHADZHI - TEBOHO KLAAS - TEMBA KALI - TERRENCE MECK - TERRENCE THONDHLANA - THABISO RATALANE - THAMI KOTLOLO - THAMI O'BRIAN - THANDEKA MUKUKU - THAPELO SEKOMA - THATO LETLAPE - THEMBA KALI - THULILE MAHONGA - TOM MKHWANAZI - TRACY GARY - TUMELO KADIKA - TUMI MOHALE - TYRON POULTER - UKHAMBA GIVING PLATFORM - VICTORIA BERGMAN - VIRGINIA MAGWAZA - VISTA KALIPA - VIVA LILES-WILKIN - VUYANE MHLOMI - WAYNE MEE - WELISWA RADEBE - WENDY SCHMIDT - WESLEY ADAMS - WINSTON BECKFORD - WYNAND ENGELBRECHT - XHANTI PAYI - YOLISWA MAKHASI - ZACK BOTHA - ZAI LOURENSE - ZAMO ZONDI - ZANDILE NZALO - ZANELE MABENA - ZETHU NKAMBULE - ZINGAPHI NGEWU - ZINI GODDEN - ZINTLE NWABISE - ZIYANDA MAJOZI