Shared Lives Group

04/08/2026

For ITGNC communities and key populations, the internet is often the safest place to find each other and one of the most dangerous places to be found.

A few things we're reminding our community this week:

1. Meeting someone from a dating app or chat group? Tell a friend where you're going, always.
2. Lock your apps. Use an app-locker or hide sensitive chats and photos.
3. Trust, but verify first. Fake profiles and blackmail schemes are out there, and they're not going away.
4. If a conversation feels off, walk away. Your safety matters more than being polite.
5. And if someone's threatening or blackmailing you online you don't have to sit with that alone. Talk to someone in the community.with that alone. Talk to someone in the community.
Initiative for Equality and Non Discrimination African Population and Health Research Center Centre For Minority Rights and Strategic LitigationNational Gay and Le***an Human Rights Commission LVCT Kenya Mama Cash

31/07/2026

We face unique barriers most people never think about long distances to reach safe healthcare, limited support networks, and an isolation that city communities don't face the same way.
Help us amplify these needs. Q***r African Network

Centre For Minority Rights and Strategic Litigation Initiative for Equality and Non Discrimination ILGA World Mama Cash LVCT Kenya Safe Place International AU-EU Youth Voices Lab - Power of the Collective

30/07/2026

This is what accessing health care can look like for a Trans person in rural Taita Taveta with support.

6:00 AM – Leaves home before sunrise, to avoid being seen.
8:30 AM – Meets a Shared Lives Group volunteer near the clinic.
9:00 AM – Walks into the clinic together, sits outside the building, still nervous but less alone.
10:00 AM – Seen by a provider. Gets gender affirming care and support.

For Lucy (identity protected) this journey used to mean long waits, fear of stigma, and sometimes walking away.
Today, because of Shared Lives Group:

she was accompanied to a friendly clinic

she was received with respect, not judgment

she knew there was a peer support network waiting for him after the visit

Health should not require this much courage. But when our members don’t walk this road alone, care becomes possible.
Centre For Minority Rights and Strategic Litigation LVCT KenyaInitiative for Equality and Non Discrimination National Gay and Le***an Human Rights Commission AU-EU Youth Voices Lab - Power of the Collective Trans Women Society

25/07/2026

No exceptions. Everyone deserves to be treated equally for who they are and who they love. That's what we stand for.

02/07/2026

Happy New Month!
A new month, a new chance to keep showing up for ITGNC communities and key populations here in rural Kenya.To everyone walking this journey with us, thank you. Let's make July count

30/06/2026

29/06/2026

Who said you need a city to celebrate Pride? Even the universe handed us a rainbow for the occasion. ITGNC youths showed up exactly as they are. This is how we celebrated Pride 2026 here in rural Kenya.

26/06/2026

Happy Pride Month

We asked;
What does Pride mean to you as an ITGNC person living in rural Kenya?
Galck+ Jinsiangu Centre For Minority Rights and Strategic Litigation Kenneth & Jacob's House Safe Place International AU-EU Youth Voices Lab - Power of the Collective

22/06/2026

Her name is not important. What happened to her is.

She was born in a village in coastal Kenya.From childhood, she knew she was different not broken, not confused, just different. But in her community, there was no space for different.

Elders called it a curse. Neighbours called it madness. Her own mother called it shame.
She was taken to three different churches before she turned 16. Prayed over. Fasted over. Cast out over. Each time, she walked home quieter than before.

At 17, her father sat the family down and said her name would no longer be spoken in the house. She left with a "nigerian bag"and nowhere to go.

She survived in ways she does not like to talk about. She went to a clinic once, sick and scared, and was turned away not because there was no medicine, but because the nurse refused to touch her. "We don't treat people like that here," she was told.

She found us through a friend of a friend. She came to her first meeting wearing a hoodie pulled low, eyes on the floor. She didn't speak for weeks.

Then one day she did.
She said: "I just wanted one person to see me as a human being first."

That sentence has never left us.

In rural Kenya, being transgender is still treated as a taboo something to be hidden, prayed away, or punished. But taboo does not make someone less human. It just makes them more alone.

At Shared Lives Group we walk with transgender, intersex, gender non-conforming, and non-binary community members who have been pushed to the edges of their own families and communities.

We offer peer support, SRHR information, and a space where no one has to justify their existence to receive care.
No one should have to fight this hard just to survive.
📩 [email protected]
📞 +254 762 120 606

19/06/2026

Happy Pride Month

We asked;
What does Pride mean to you as an LGBTQ+ person living in rural Kenya, and how has life in this community shaped what Pride looks and feels like for you?