Head
of the class
PFLAG, ZAMI give gay students leg up with scholarships
Friday, September 16, 2005
In 2001, Sybille Ngo Nyeck came to the U.S. desperate just for
sleep.
Finding refuge in a New York City shelter, the Cameroon native
fled after a
divisive family conflict first spilled over into Cameroon's courts,
then
into the public eye, where Nyeck was outed as a lesbian.
"I hadn't slept for a year, so I came to the U.S. to sleep and
to rest for
three months," Nyeck says.
She is one of 13 college students who will receive a $1,000
scholarship
from ZAMI, a black lesbian group in Atlanta, at its 10th annual
Audre Lorde
Scholarship ceremony on Sept. 24.
Nyeck's personal struggle based on her sexual orientation and
her
subsequent goals and achievements led ZAMI to choose her as a
scholarship
winner, according to Mary Anne Adams, ZAMI board chair.
After accusing a male family member of raping a younger female
relative in
2000, Nyeck was outed as a lesbian during a police investigation
into the
allegations.
"In my country, it's a crime - you can be in prison for up to
five years," she says.
Nyeck spent only one night in jail, but once she gained freedom,
her sexual
orientation was plastered in government-run and private newspapers.
She was
subjected to taunts and even death threats, including being the
target of a
hit-and-run attempt, she says.
"It became the case of a lesbian man-hater against the criminal
- the whole
court proceeding was the judge asking, 'Are you a lesbian?'"
Nyeck says of
the incest trial. "My life became miserable."
She chronicled Cameroon's pervasive homophobia in a regular
column in a
social justice magazine. When she decided to flee Cameroon in
May 2003 -
carrying only her passport and a few legal documents - several
people who
responded to Nyeck's writings helped her.
As she applied for asylum, Nyeck said she met another lesbian
from Cameroon
who used Nyeck's writings to convince U.S. officials to grant
her own
asylum.
"I felt like, 'Well, maybe I'm doing something,'" Nyeck
says.
She was granted asylum in August 2004 and enrolled at Swarthmore
College in
Pennsylvania for the Fall 2005 semester. She is studying comparative
literature and political science with a concentration on international
affairs.
Despite distance from her homeland, Nyeck says she wants to
stay connected
to Africa and possibly finish a documentary she started in Cameroon
about
homophobia in that country.
"Right now, I can't even go back to Cameroon, but I would like
to explore
in other African countries how the issue is dealt with," Nyeck
says.
ZAMI has awarded some 70 $1,000 scholarships to black gay and
lesbian
students since creating the Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund in 1995.
Of this
year's 13 winners, nine are lesbians and four are gay men.
In addition to Nyeck, the other 2005 recipients include Amy
Myers, a social
work major at Fordham University; Karen G. Williams, a cultural
anthropology major at CUNY; Doreen Watson, who studies sociology
and
women's studies at Texas Woman's University; Preston Shumaker,
a clinical
psychology major at Illinois School of Profession Psychology
and Kyle
Waddy, a French and linguistics major at New York University.
Also, Lukwanna Littlejohn, an English major at Cosumnes River
College;
Marcus Gunn, who studies political science and social work at
Albany State
University; Christel Miller, a film producing major at UCLA;
Oberlin
College student Justin L. Brogden; Angela Britt, an environmental
studies
major at Seattle Central Community College; Pamela Goodrich,
a sociology
major at the College of New Rochelle; and Cindy Pierre Louis,
a criminal
justice major at Antioch College.
Georgia
Stage Doctoral student Anneliese Singh also knows about oppression.
She is one of three scholarship recipients scheduled to be
recognized at
the annual awards dinner for the Atlanta chapter of Parent & Friends
of
Lesbians & Gays on Sept. 25.
Singh, a doctoral student at Georgia State University, says
she benefited
from the physical attributes she inherited from her Scottish-Irish-Cajun
mother. But she also knows what it's like to be an ethnic minority
in
America because her father is Sikh.
Her tightrope act on America's color line inspires Singh to
fight for
marginalized groups, she says.
"Being a Sikh, it was really important to stand up for the truth,
to stand
up for what's right," Singh says. "Also, not fitting into one
ethnic box
just really helped me understand privilege and oppression issues
in the
world a lot better," Singh says.
Singh receives a PFLAG scholarship for the third year in a row
for her
work, including founding a gay counseling group at Georgia State,
volunteering at AID Gwinnett and Project Open Hand, and launching
a support
group for childhood sexual abuse survivors.
Jaime Wojdowski, a law student at Georgia State focusing on
public interest
law, and Michael T. Crachiolo II, a public administration major
at New York
University, will also receive PFLAG scholarships at the upcoming
ceremony.
