Below are those who were granted awards from the Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund in the year 2006. For descriptions of the awards and their sponsors, see Award Sponsors.

For information on applying, see Scholarship Application. To donate, see Contribute to the Fund

Tamara Bullock, recipient of the Sheryl Burke Award, is in her senior year at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She iTamara Bullocks majoring in International Relations and aspires to work in the non-profit sector addressing the social, political, economic, and environmental aspects of development. She wants to focus on women, youth and the LGBT communities of color, both in the advanced and Third World countries. Bullock restarted and co-chaired an LGBT group for people of color at Mount Holyoke; organized meetings, dialogues, and poetry performances for LGBT people of color issues; and continues to write poetry celebrating LGBT identity.
Charlene Cooper, is the recipient of the Miya Binta Award. At the age of seventeen with a new born infant, Cooper received the diagnosis that they were both HIV positive. After years of waiting to die, Cooper made the decision to live, and after obtaining her GED, graduated at the top of her class with a bachelor’s degree and has now entered the graduate program at Columbia University School of Public Health. Currently, Cooper works as an HIV Adolescent Counselor by providing prevention counseling in an attempt to help eradicate the spread of HIV. She also counsels youth on other issues such as domestic violence, substance use, sexual identity and sexual assault.
Pamela Goodrich is the recipient of the Kathi Martin- Edith Biggers-Brinda Taylor Award. At 53 years of age, Goodrich has been “out” for the past forty years. “My perception of normalcy is the (lgbt) lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community. As a sophomore at The College of New Rochelle in Brooklyn, New York, Goodrich is working toward a degree in Sociology which she feels is the key to opening the door to the rest of her life. A self-described “butch,” Goodwin works in a male prison and believes that her sexual orientation and the fact that she has been living with HIV/ AIDS since 1989 enhances her ability to interact and provide HIV Health Education and Prevention Training to not only the prisoners but to members of the community at large.
Brandon Kazen-Maddox, recipient of the Rhonda Freeman-Sarah Crymes Award is in his first year at the University of Washington in Seattle. Among his many activities in high school: drama, dance team, newspaper and science club, Kazen-Maddox also served as senior class president, captain of the varsity cheerleading squad and captain of the Athletic Club cheer team while enrolled in the honors track. He has worked as a sign language interpreter and a mentor of children through music. “With financial assistance, I hope to flat out succeed, states Kazen-Maddox. When I attempt to do something, I am going to do it 100% and persist until it is done. I work hard to take nothing for granted because I know how it feels to have nothing. I want to help people and make a huge difference in the lives of others. I want to be a person that people can look to and say, that guy is gay but he’s really funny, nice, strong and he’s also a leader.”
Fiona Lewis, the recipient of the Linda Bryant Award has been an integral part of the Atlanta LGBT community and has been working at Charis Books & More for the past eight years. She moved to Atlanta after getting her undergraduate degree in Gender Studies and British and American Literature from New College of Florida. Lewis’ first novel, Bliss, was published in 2005 by Kensington Books and her sophomore effort, A Taste of Sin, is being released this year. Lewis attends San Diego University in California and is pursuing an MFA degree. Of one of her favorite authors, she writes, “Like Michelle Cliff, I want to write about the Jamaica of my memories, but also about the country as it exists now. I want to talk about things previously unmentioned, like women loving women, and men loving men, and about how we can change our world, or island, one loud voice at a time.”
Dale Guy Madison, recipient of the Tony Daniels Community Ally Award funded by ADODI Muse: A Gay Negro Ensemble, writes passionately about coming out to his parents. “I came out in 1976 shortly after my 18th birthday. I blurted it out in a moment of proud adoration. My father told me I had to move out of his house in two weeks. My life changed in that moment. My dreams of going to NYU and studying acting vanished. I had to figure out where I was going to live. My friends were preparing for the prom, and I was shopping for an apartment. My closet door opened and I never closed it after that.” Madison, a student at Santa Monica College in California, is learning all he can about entertainment marketing by majoring in Business. In 1991, he became a host on the QVC shopping channel. On the show, he conceived and produced the first-ever shopping show dedicated to products originating from Africa. Consequently, QVC helped to launch Madison’s career as a nationally recognized doll designer.
Christel Serena Miller, recipient of the Wendy Belkin Award, is a four-time Audre Lorde Scholarship recipient. After graduating from Rice University in the spring of 2005 with numerous awards, Miller is now in her second year of graduate school at UCLA studying film production. Her vision these days is to simply produce films about which she is passionate. Miller’s most recent film, Butchalez, premiered at the Reach LA Queer Youth Filmmakers Showcase earlier this year. She also served as an intern at Pink Thunder Productions and HBO Films and produced Welcome to Paradise, an American Film Institute Project.
Sybille Ngo Nyeck is the recipient of the K.M. Griffin Award. A junior at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, Ngo Nyeck fled her native Cameroon in May 2003 and sought asylum in the U.S. after being denounced as a lesbian and thrown in jail. The first woman to initiate a dialogue beyond hetero-normative discourse in Cameroon, her numerous publications and speeches on human rights abuses have helped win asylum for others in the U.S. She is also working on a video documentary featuring the lives of gays and lesbians in Cameroon. “Being part of ZAMI’s Audre Lorde Scholarship Family is special to me. This special feeling comes from the realization that this scholarship does not dichotomize me. Because of ZAMI, I think of myself as a full-fledged scholar of both intellectual merit and sensual consciousness.”
Adetunji Olude is the recipient of the Margaret Ntombi Howell Power & Presence Memorial Award funded by Rhesa M. Jenkins & Ama Saran. She is pursuing a Law degree at Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, Olude chose juvenile law as a result of challenges she faced in her own life and “a childhood and adolescence plagued by domestic violence.” Olude has long been an advocate for the rights of children in the role of counselor and legal assistant in non-profit organizations. “I recognized that a common thread weaves among youth in the delinquency, mental health, and foster care systems. Many of the youth have been abused and lack the constancy of supportive guardians or a safe environment in which to grow.” Olude is determined to lead an authentic life and notes that the importance of being “out” for her has a lot to do with being fully engaged in relationships with family and friends and “sharing with them who I truly am.”
Ruth Senecharles, recipient of the Fourth Tuesday Award is an entering freshman at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Connecticut. She states that her primary goal is to gain the essential skill set to become a social worker. Senecharles dreams of opening an after school program dedicated to helping children from lowincome families as well as lesbian, gay and bisexual youth. “I want to have a safe place for youth to question, and learn and have healthy mutual relationships with adults. I don’t want lgbt youth growing up feeling confused and depressed about their sexuality.” According to Senecharles, keeping her sexual orientation a secret in high school was stressful, frustrating and complicated. She became mad at the world and angry with herself, however, finally making the decision to come out to family and friends changed her life in a positive way. “Getting an award from the Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund is definitely an eye-opener for me. I’m now able to see how being a lesbian, which was something that I used to look down upon due to what society taught me has actually turned out to be helpful.”
Anneliese Singh, a recipient of the (ALFA) Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance Award has been a member of the movement towards social justice as a queer woman of color in the Atlanta area for many years. In her community work, she has worked closely with the Queer Progressive Agenda, Trikone-Atlanta, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and AGLBIC (the Association of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual issues in Counseling). Singh, currently pursuing a doctorate in Counseling Psychology at Georgia State University dreams of founding a nonprofit counseling center for LGBTQIQ people that would engage in advocacy and social justice work as well as focus on the ways that internalized oppression impact mental health for people of color and others from marginalized backgrounds. “Over the past year, I have been thinking about how important it is to be out in different ways. I have been working hard on being the best “out” transgender ally I can be. I no longer tolerate any anti-trans or gender-phobic comments, and I do my best to invite understanding and education to transphobic people or people who are uneducated about trans issues.”
Kaila Adia Story, recipient of the Sheryl Burke Award, is a Doctoral student in African-American Studies at Temple University in Pennsylvania. Named the Graduate Fellow in the Institute for Race and Social Thought at Temple, Story currently teaches two courses there: one in Women’s and LGBT Studies that examines same-sex erotic attraction and/or gender difference, and an African-American Studies course that provides an overview of the experience, culture, and political practices of African descendants throughout the world. To Story, it is important to use all of the books, films, and art that have influenced her as a means to communicate to her students; one of things she emphasizes to them is that “Black women have been working together for centuries to change the world that sometimes suffocates us all.”
Caroline Tushabe, the recipient of the Sheryl Burke Award, is a Doctoral student at SUNY Binghamton studying Philosophy, Sexuality, Race and Gender. At Binghamton, she is an active member of a new initiative called, “The Projects of Queer Studies: Race, Pedagogy, and Social Theory.” This initiative seeks to create an intellectual and political climate able to cultivate radical queer of color social thought and activism. Tushabe who serves as President of one of the Graduate Student Associations, also teaches, believing that it is her responsibility to come out as a lesbian of color in the classroom. “I feel responsible to myself and my students to break the silence and confront the fear that invades us all.” Tushabe dreams of a future as a transnational cultural worker addressing queer issues in her native Uganda and in the United States. “I hope to be part of a necessarily collective process—at the grassroots and in the academy—of making visible and speakable worlds of lesbian loving within the communities that constitute my own self as African, Ugandan, Mukiga, and ‘lesbian of color,’ in the United States.”
Described as a nonprofit guru, coalition builder, lgbtq/ human rights activist, cultural worker, feminist, writer, and scholar, Craig Washington, the recipient of the Mary Anne Adams Award, attends Georgia State University earning a degree in Social Work while continuing to work full-time as a volunteer and training coordinator at Positive Impact. According to Washington, “There is not a space or level of community interaction in which I am not open about my sexual orientation. After my initial coming out process, I was intentional about liberating myself from any vestiges of shame or self-consciousness about being gay. I would not befriend anyone who could not accept and affirm that aspect of my being. I am publicly out having appeared in numerous publications and television broadcasts as gay-identified. Being out is not a static condition but an ongoing process of evolution that entails an uncovering, an unpacking, a continual shedding to reach my divine humanity and recognize the humanity of others.”
Jeremiah Waters, a rising junior at Drexel University in Philadelphia is the recipient of the Cherie Caldwell Award. Waters, a finance and information systems major assumed the entire financial burden for his college education after his clergy father informed him that he would no longer support him if he remained an active homosexual. “I personally take being out very seriously because of the price I have to pay to be an out gay man. Being out has been a wonderful, liberating experience, but it has also caused the most difficult time in my life with my conservative Christian family.” With the help of friends and professors, Waters is determined to continue his education and thrive in his life. During the past year, he co-founded a student group called F.U.S.E. (Foundation of Undergraduates for Sexual Equality) where he currently serves as vice-president.
Karen Williams, recipient of the Fourth Tuesday Award is in her second year of a Ph. D. program at The Graduate Center, CUNY focusing on Cultural Anthropology. Although she has had an ongoing struggle to raise funds for her education, and continues to balance a full academic load with a demanding job, growing up in a household where neither parent attended college, education and expression have always been central to her goals. Since 1998, with support from grants and community organizations, Williams has used her writings and performances to illustrate the embedded physical and psychological pain of incarceration. At CUNY, her work has looked at the critical intersections for gender, race, sexuality and class as it relates to the criminalization of women. She is hopeful that her research will have a positive impact and help change society’s representation of women in prison to images that “more accurately reflect their complex identities and experiences.” Recently, Williams has examined the rise of Methamphetamine usage in the queer youth of color community.