Words from Keneilwe Zulu, Executive Director, Access Chapter 2 at GiveOut’s Pride Celebration on 22nd May 2025
“In January 2025, Access Chapter 2 was forced to shut its doors. Not because our work was done, but because we simply could no longer pay rent at AC2.
Our landlord arrived in chains.
There were chains and a sign from the outside, stating that we won’t be able to provide direct services. People are coming into our offices every day, seeking our services—legal advice, health services, psychosocial support. It’s even a safe space to a point where you find a queer learner coming to read a book at AC2 and connect to our Wi-Fi. We could not provide that anymore.
We were forced to shut down, leaving 72 staff members losing their jobs overnight and more than 100 individual survivors of violence, people living with HIV, and vulnerable queer individuals cut off from essential legal, psychosocial, and health services overnight. This was due to the US fund cut. So we were affected. We were impacted.
But with the support of funders like GiveOut, we managed to find our feet. We reopened our offices, and that’s why I’m standing here today. We are slowly beginning to provide services again. We are rebuilding what has been lost.”