(5 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kampala, Uganda – 28 January 2025
1. Wide of Pius Kennedy, Ugandan activist, working on laptop inside his house
2. Close of Kennedy
3. Mid of Laptop showing USAID funding suspension message
4. Close of USAID suspension message on Kennedy’s laptop
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Pius Kennedy, Human Rights Activist:
“I thought this was going only going to deal with the US agencies that is PEPFAR, CDC, USAID but again I went to find out that also some donors are now going to pull out resources because they were also receiving from the similar funding baskets to sub grant to us – the other organization this side – so if their funder has pulled out and is suspended – because the letter was specifying that all these grants have been suspended for 90 days.”
6. Various of Kennedy in his house
7. Close of message on laptop
8. Various of materials from LGBTQ+ NGO
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Pius Kennedy, Human Rights Activist:
“USAID has been the biggest HIV funder and I would say that a number of people, close to 20 million people, were receiving ARVs (antiretroviral drugs) ART treatment (antiretroviral therapy), testing services from the funds that USAID has been providing to us. And now since they have pulled out, this suspension was immediately effective, so that means if yesterday your employees had to come back the following day to office you had to stop them because you had no money to continue with them. So, we are now looking at an increase in infections, a decrease in suppression, we are looking at a decrease in care and also many people are now going to become infected since they will no longer be able to access lubricants, condoms, self-testing kits.”
10. Various of Kennedy and his partner in their house
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Pius Kennedy, Human Rights Activist:
“it’s now no longer an issue of the two genders but it’s now becoming a global issue because many facilities – I was talking to a friend from South Africa in the morning and he was telling me they had to close and yet they had 28 refills to do. So they could not do them since they were told any activity done after 24th of January, the money had to be refunded. So I’m looking at this not as an issue that affected Uganda or that affected East Africa, it’s an issue that has affected the global citizenship.”
12. Various of Kennedy and his partner cooking in their kitchen
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Pius Kennedy, Human Rights Activist:
“We would always look at the United States as something that we would always run to in case you are facing a number of insecurities in the country, you are finding it unsafe to continue staying in Uganda. But if again we are receiving such threats you can no longer seek asylum in the United States. Surely it’s now an extra threat to the community and also to the people who are already living in the United States that have not been yet able to receive their asylum to receive citizenship.”
14. Various of Kennedy in the kitchen
STORYLINE:
Ugandan LGBTQ+ rights activist Pius Kennedy is one of many humanitarian workers across the world who is effectively out of a job since U.S. President Donald Trump shut down the government’s main agency for delivering humanitarian aid to other countries.
The Africa Queer Network nonprofit where he works provides counselling for members of Uganda’s LGBTQ community and receives most of its funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“Some donors are now going to pull out resources because they were also receiving from the similar funding baskets to sub grant to us," said Kennedy.
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