An LGBT advocate and HIV activist, Adebisi Alimi was the first person to ever come out as gay on Nigerian television. After an attempt on his life in 2007, he fled to the UK where he was granted political asylum. Before he left, he founded The Independent Project for Equal Rights-Nigeria, where he served as Executive Director and pioneered several Nigerian LGBT youth initiatives. In the UK, he helped to set up Britain’s first international LGBT organization, Kaleidoscope Diversity Trust, where he served as media spokesperson and Director for Africa until 2012. As a Fellow of AVAC, an HIV prevention and treatment fellowship based in New York, he promotes the need for community involvement of more Black gay men in Europe on the mobilization in the fight against HIV. His development work focuses on promoting human rights for gay African men and the prevention of HIV/AIDS.
