1. Stella Nyanzi received her Master of Science in Medical Anthropology at University College London, where she studied from 1999 to 2000.
18 Facts About Stella Nyanzi
1. 2.
Stella Nyanzi began her career in 1997 as a social science research associate at the Medical Research Council Programme in Uganda, where she worked until September 2002.
3.
Stella Nyanzi then received a new position working as Local Anthropologist at the Medical Research Council Laboratories, The Gambia, where she worked for one year.
4.
Stella Nyanzi left that position to pursue her PhD in London.
5.
Stella Nyanzi then worked as a Research Fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research until 2016.
6.
Stella Nyanzi's office was closed and, in an example of the West African feminist cultural practice of what the scholar Naminata Diabate has called "naked agency," made a nude protest against her boss.
7.
Stella Nyanzi appealed the decision with Makerere University's appeal tribunal, which directed that she be reinstated, promoted to the level of a research fellow with immediate effect, and paid back wages.
8.
Stella Nyanzi has done consulting work for various social research organizations outside of Uganda and The Gambia.
9.
Stella Nyanzi is a well-cited scholar in her fields, with 61 articles and 2,049 citations by May 2022.
10.
Stella Nyanzi is one of the first scholars to publish research on African homosexuality.
11.
Stella Nyanzi practices what scholars have called "radical rudeness," which is a traditional Ugandan strategy of calling the powerful to account through public insult.
12.
Stella Nyanzi has campaigned for the rights of Ugandan women, youth, and LGBTQIA+ people.
13.
On 6 March 2017, Stella Nyanzi launched the Pads4girlsUg Project, due to her concerns about girls missing school because they could not afford menstrual products.
14.
Stella Nyanzi collected thousands of re-usable pads and distributed them to school girls and offered lectures to school children about menstrual health.
15.
On 7 April 2017, Stella Nyanzi was arrested and detained by police at Kiira Police Station on charges of cyber harassment and offensive communication.
16.
Stella Nyanzi did not request bail because she believed she was safer in jail and because she wanted to continue her education work with the women in prison.
17.
In January 2019, Stella Nyanzi asked that her court date be delayed as she was ill and had suffered a miscarriage in prison.
18.
On 30 January 2021, Stella Nyanzi arrived in Nairobi, Kenya by bus, and through her lawyer, Professor George Luchiri Wajackoyah, sought asylum in Kenya, on account of political persecution by the Museveni-led government in Uganda.