None on Record is a digital media organization that works with African LGBT communities across the African continent and the diaspora. We focus our work in three areas – digital media and documentation; technology and media training programs; and culture and innovation.
None on Record’s digital media and documentation work can take the form of video, audio and multimedia documentaries. Our training program works in collaboration with African LGBT organizations in East and Southern Africa to conduct workshops on digital media tools and best practices to produce their own work (and tell their own story). None on Record’s culture and innovation work takes the form of the Tamasha Festival, a celebration of African LGBT culture and art from around the world.
None on Record’s History
In 2004, FannyAnn Eddy, an LGBT activist from Sierra Leone, West Africa was murdered in the offices of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association. The news of her murder circulated around the world. To honor the African LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) spirit that Fanny Ann embodied, Senegalese-American journalist, Selly Thiam began collecting the oral histories of LGBT Africans around the world. None on Record was then founded in 2006.
None on Record has grown from an oral history project collecting the stories of over 350 LGBT Africans to a digital media organization that produces multi-media documentaries and teaches digital media skills in African LGBT communities.
In 2012, None on Record opened its East Africa office to work with LGBT organizations and media organizations throughout the continent to challenge the narratives around LGBT experiences. This work is critical on the African continent where local media ignores or vilifies LGBT communities and foreign reporting creates an image of LGBT people as passive victims of homophobic acts and policies.
Community partnerships allow for the production of high quality digital media about LGBT communities and creates space for trainings with organizations to support digital media needs and produce media for campaigns and community documentation. We have conducted interviews and training workshops in Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Burundi, Senegal, the UK and throughout the United States and Canada.