SafePlace International (SPI) not only works to provide safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ displaced individuals, but it also empowers them. The organization does so through The Dream Academy (TDA), a 10-week intensive virtual course designed to equip participants with leadership training, socio-emotional learning, and job skills. Graduates from the program have the opportunity to put their vision into action through grant proposals.
The academy’s ultimate goal is to shift shame and trauma into agency and determination. SPI seeks to reach, protect, connect, and ultimately invest in those who participate. Upon completion of the program, participants are emboldened to be agents of change in their communities. Many of the TDA graduates felt like exactly that—agents.
One graduate from South Africa, Babalwa, saw herself as a leader upon exiting the program. Being a leader, to her, meant showing up for those in her community with confidence.
“If I want to take a stance, I would take a stance immediately with responsibility, knowing that I'm not only helping myself, but I'm helping a much bigger community. My main focus with being a leader is making sure I am being me, and showing myself comfortably around others.”
To her, showing up for the community looks like showing empathy. When Babalwa sees others suffering, she feels their pain. “It hurts to see innocent LGBTQI+ people out there, refugees, to get hurt by people who think that they are not part of this world,” she said.
Still others found that authenticity was a crucial part of their growth after completing TDA, like Eastern Cape graduate Lilita, who is known as Sweetness.
“I was challenged by The Dream Academy, and it allowed me to begin to know who I am, what I want in life, and how to overcome. I am proud of The Dream Academy because I am now a changed person who lives a happy, happy life!”
Thanks to TDA, Sweetness is now the founder and director of Lilita’s Kitchen and Gardens. The project, funded by the program, teaches youth and mothers in Cape Town how to start small gardens in addition to its door-to-door ministry that provides living necessities for elderly folks in the community.
Sweetness noticed many kids in her community struggling to find jobs, leaving them to join gangs and forego other opportunities. The creation of Lilita’s Kitchen and Gardens was her attempt to offer learning opportunities with the hope that those kids would also have a transformative experience.
Transformation is what TDA is all about, and Elina, a refugee and single and lesbian-identifying mother now residing in Cape Town, is a testament to that. Her time at the academy helped her find herself and helped her as a parent.
“When I started, I was so broken and so hurt. I wasn't vulnerable; I wouldn't let anyone in, I wouldn't let anyone past the walls that I put up. Now, I can let people in, I can communicate, I can love, I can hug, and I can give as well. I have learned that being vulnerable is a superpower, not a weakness.”
The Dream Academy, more than anything else, offers loving support and encouragement, allowing graduates to lean into who they are and what they are passionate about. Like Carol, a bisexual woman and mother of two from Zimbabwe who set up Smiling Homes, a home for the LGBTQIA+ elderly. Through Smiling Homes, food and shelter are provided to LGBTQIA+ people who need it. She’s proud to be a part of such a loving community and to have found her strengths.
“I discovered that I was a true leader, born a leader. I just needed the tools."
It was love that she experienced while a part of TDA that impacted her life and many in the class of TDA graduates the most.
"It took people loving me up to find that I can be a person of influence, and I can help another person. I can share my story with someone, and they can be healed through it”
