EMERGENCY IN BEIRUT
Last Tuesday, a massive chemical explosion destroyed my beautiful home city, Beirut, causing damage ten kilometres from the blast site.
Today, we urgently need your help.
I'm the Executive Director at Proud Lebanon, a group that provides LGBT+ people in Beirut with vital medical, legal, and community services.
Our offices have been damaged, some of our staff are missing, and so many vulnerable LGBT+ community members are now left homeless and hungry.
We're feeling desperate: the blast came on top of a financial crisis, a failing state, a pandemic, and the ongoing criminalisation and bigotry that LGBT+ people face here in Lebanon.
When the dust settles, we will find the energy to rebuild, reorganise, and continue fighting for equality. We have to.
But right now, we're in full emergency mode. We’re out thAll Outere, in the rubble of our city, making sure our LGBT+ siblings and their families and friends survive.
Will you help us provide emergency shelter, food, and post-trauma psychological support to the LGBT+ community in Beirut by making an urgent donation today?
Your gift will support people like Lara*, a trans woman who was refused emergency help due to her gender identity. She was at home during the blast and it destroyed her house and all her belongings and left her seriously injured. She has nothing left, not even her pets. Your donation will provide emergency food and shelter for Lara and many others like her.
Your donation will also support people like David* and Rami*, a gay couple who have been left homeless and who are now both suffering with severe post-traumatic stress. Your donation will enable them and many others like them to receive the psychological support they need to recover and rebuild their lives.
Our city is truly in crisis.
So far, there have been at least 155 deaths, 5,000 people injured, and 300,000 people left homeless. The neighbourhoods hit hardest by the explosion were where many LGBT+ people lived, so we've been particularly hard hit as a community.
Lara, David, Rami, and countless other LGBT+ people in Beirut need your solidarity. Please make a donation urgently.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Bertho Makso Proud Lebanon's Executive Director
*Names have been changed to protect identities
P.S. One of All Out's major donors has offered to match any gift made in this appeal, up to US$6,000. By donating today, the impact of your donation will be doubled.
John Bellamy Comments: We are so smug here in the west. We use to have PRIDE which was to raise awareness - politically and in all ways - to wanting / demanding / education about the need for Gay Rights. Equality under the law.
Now all we have is a piss up and an excuse for some free drag and a day to dress up in a theme for the year - and party - hardly supportive of other LGBT's abroad and hardly bringing public awareness to those still struggling under LGBT homophobic regimes and states.
Just because we got what we fought for in the UK, to a degree, does not mean the fight for equality for other LGBT communities around the world - is over.
Scores of countries outlaw LGBT and many are beaten, put in prison and murdered - just for being the way they were born to be - LGBT.
I know many here are struggking after months in lockdown, but out yourself in their shoes... Home destroyed, Family possible killed in the blast. No where to go and no food and shelter and all in the middle of a pandemic and in a country that will persecute you for being who you are.
Donate and help the Beirut LGBT's find the help they need at this time.
JB
