S is for Say It Loud Club
🛻 Lucy Dunnet
Something we love even more than pits at Wild is supporting impactful causes, either through charitable donations or volunteer work. Over just the past year, we have donated to 31 organisations working across a range of meaningful sectors, from international wildlife charity Born Free and Ocean Clean Up, to Brain Tumour Charity and Parkinson’s UK (to name but a fraction).
For our latest charity donation round, we opened the floor up to our Wild colleagues to pitch causes close to their hearts… and we ended up giving to not just one, but nine different organisations. Our ESG panel pondered and deliberated, and while they chose Say It Loud Club – a member-led community supporting LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers in the UK – as our main charity of the quarter, they opted to donate to the other eight causes pitched by our team as well. Why choose?
What is Say It Loud Club?
Say It Loud Club is the community of LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. Member-led and rooted in lived experience, the organisation provides social, emotional, educational and advocacy support, helping members build community, access support and live safely and openly.
What began as a secret organisation between just six friends is now one of the largest organisations supporting LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.
In 1994, a student named Aloysius Ssali set up Say It Loud Club to campaign for LGBTQ+ rights in Uganda. By 2003, “things had gotten out of hand”; with the organisation discovered and Aloysius identified as its founder, he became a target. So he decided to come to the UK to continue his studies, with the idea to see if he could one day go back to live in his country as he was. This was not to be the case. When he returned in 2005, Aloysius was captured and tortured.
Only 1 in 4 people who apply for asylum on the basis of their sexuality are granted status in the UK.
How Say It Loud Club came to the UK
Aloysius fled to the UK, but because the UK didn’t formally recognise sexuality as a reason for claiming refugee status until 2010, he had to live without papers for five years. During this time, he witnessed how little support LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers receive during what is a highly legalised, alienating and disorientating process. So Aloysius founded Say It Loud Club in the UK in 2010, the same year he officially claimed his own refugee status.
Now, 16 years later, Say It Loud Club has the support of Choose Love and Aloysius is able to work full-time helping the 850+ members currently in their community. The organisation – still only staffed by three people – has helped hundreds of LGBTQ+ refugees successfully gain the right to live freely in the UK, and hopes to support many, many more.
The UK has the capacity to change Africa and Asia as far as LGBTQ+ rights are concerned. We cannot look at asylum seekers and refugees as a burden. We cannot look at them as a number. We look at them as people in need.
Where else did our support go?
£10,000 to Say It Loud Club.
Provides social, emotional, practical, and legal support to LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum-seekers in the UK.
£1,000 to The FTD Brothers Foundation.
Raises funds and awareness for dementia research, while supporting those affected by frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
£500 to each of the following charities:
Stonepillow, Solace Women’s Aid, Metal For Good, HeartBound, Common Understanding, Oxfam, Burning Nights CRPS.
