By: Our Staff Writer
MONROVIA/ATLANTA: Liberia’s newest political and sensational personality who is also Political Leader of the Alternative National Congress (ANC), Alexander Benedict Cummings, has been raising funds (money) for Liberian gays and lesbians’ community.
Multiple reports indicate that a leading American business tycoon, identified as Sandy Edwards, contributed a whopping US$100,000 grant to the Liberian based Cummings Africa Foundation Gay Fund, a collective giving and endowment initiative of Foundation For the LGBT communities in West Africa.
Cummings is also owner of “Cummings Africa Foundation, “with a branch also in Liberia. The Foundation has been implementing chains of development projects.
The reports also indicated that the Fund addresses the historic under-funding of nonprofit organizations that support the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
“I lived in Liberia for 30 years before the first civil war and I am still in love with the country. I wanted to encourage Liberians in the Diasporas and at home to contribute to the Cummings Africa Foundation Gay Fund and thought of no better way than to show it by example,” said Edwards.
“I believe the overall success of our community is dependent on promoting understanding and inclusion,” he added.
According to the reports, Cummings Africa Foundation Gay Fund moves towards this goal by funding organizations and programs which support lesbian and gay individuals and their families in Liberia and other parts of West Africa.”
Since its inception, the Fund has provided over $462,500 in operational and community connections grants to local nonprofit organizations across West Africa.
The fund is administered by a Cummings Africa Foundation advisory board and 100 percent of donations are distributed as grants.
The Fund awarded its 2017 grants to the following organizations: Lofa County Gays Union LRD, Montserrado Hope for LGBT LRD, Gays Men Chorus of Ganta, Campus Pride at the University of Liberia and LGBT Friends.
Liberia has an anti-LGBT laws that frame same-sex conduct as a misdemeanor, punishable for up to one year in prison.
However, in an interview with a U.S-based LIBERIAN CONFIDENTIAL media Outlet, Mr. Alexander B. Cummings, who is the Chairman of the Foundation defended the LGBT Community in Liberia.
“I heard Senator Taylor say gays should not be legalized and that they should be prosecuted. I feel bad about it because everyone has rights. People don’t just come up with that kind of life. It’s something you are born with…. If I love a boy, it’s nature, not a crime. History teaches us that the erosion of anyone’s or any group’s basic rights means our own rights are in jeopardy. That’s why ordinary Liberians should care. If we stand by and allow others to be harassed and persecuted for being born the way they are, then our silence is complicity,” he added.
Mr. Cummings is yet to confirm or deny whether the American business mogul, Sandy Edwards, contributed US$100,000 grant to the Liberian based Cummings Africa Foundation Gay Fund, a collective giving and endowment initiative of Foundation for the LGBT communities in West Africa.
