As part of Amsterdam WorldPride celebrations, ILGA World and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have celebrated five Equality Champions during a special ceremony.
Held at the WorldPride Human Rights Conference, the International Pride Awards honoured outstanding achievements around the world in advancing LGBTIQA+ equality.
Mandeep Dhaliwal, Director of the Prosperity and Wellbeing Hub at UNDP, says the courage of these recipients is a powerful reminder that progress is built by people and movements who refuse to accept exclusion and inequality.
“Their leadership is changing institutions, strengthening communities and expanding the freedom to live with dignity. UNDP is proud to help bring their work to a global audience,” Dhaliwal said.
Julia Ehrt, Executive Director of ILGA World, adds that the awardees are prime examples for how to advance equality for everyone by opening doors for others.
“Their work spans different countries and generations, but it is united by a belief in a future where everyone can thrive free from fear and prejudice,” Ehrt said.
“The International Pride Awards honour their achievements and the many communities standing alongside them.”
The awardees are South African deputy minister Mmapaseka Steve Letsike, the human rights organisation COC Nederland, long-standing activist Marcela Dimonty from Chile, Ugandan trans pastor Aggie Dennett Harmon, and the disability rights advocate and LGBTIQ+ ally Dr Satendra Singh from India.
You can learn more about their work below. You can also watch the full International Pride Awards ceremony on YouTube.
MOVEMENT BUILDING IN THE FACE OF HOSTILITY: COC Nederland (the Netherlands)
COC Nederland, founded in 1946, is the oldest existing LGBTIQ+ rights organisation in the world. COC strengthens grassroots LGBTIQ+ movements confronting criminalisation, violence, discrimination and shrinking civic space. Working with more than 200 organisations in over 35 countries, it supports leadership development, organisational capacity, fundraising and international advocacy, while amplifying local voices in international human rights forums. Its work helps build more connected, inclusive and resilient equality movements, including organisations serving lesbian, bisexual and queer women, as well as trans and intersex people.
CELEBRATING DIVERSE LIVES: Aggie Dennett Harmon (Uganda)
A Ugandan trans pastor, advocate and community leader, Aggie Dennett Harmon supports LGBTIQ+ people – particularly trans women – facing violence, displacement and exclusion. She co-founded Talented Youth Community Fellowship Uganda, a trans women-led organisation offering psychosocial support, trauma-informed care, peer networks and empowerment programmes. She also founded the Nange Healing and Harm Reduction Center, a safe and affirming space for trans people and people who use drugs. Through her ministry, advocacy, storytelling and books, she promotes healing and belonging while helping reconcile faith and queerness.
EMERGING LEADER: Mmapaseka Steve Letsike (South Africa)
Steve Letsike is an emerging South African political leader whose public service is grounded in decades of human rights activism and social justice advocacy. After years of working through civil society to advance LGBTIQ+ equality, public health and intersectional justice, she entered Parliament in 2024 and was appointed Deputy Minister of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities. In this role, she is bringing grassroots experience into government to address discrimination, violence, unequal access to public health services and the underrepresentation of LGBTIQ+ people in political life. Her rise in national politics is expanding LGBTIQ+ representation and demonstrating how movement leadership can shape policy and institutional change.
LIFELONG PURSUIT OF EQUALITY: Marcela Dimonty (Chile)
Marcela Dimonty is a Chilean trans activist whose life and advocacy connect the repression experienced by LGBTIQ+ people during Chile’s military dictatorship with the exclusion still faced by older trans people. After taking part in the country’s first LGBT protest in 1973 and surviving detention and torture by state forces, she turned those experiences into decades of testimony, artistic expression and human rights advocacy. Her work has strengthened calls for memory, truth and reparation while inspiring new generations of activists.
EXTRAORDINARY ALLY: Dr Satendra Singh (India)
Dr Satendra Singh is an Indian disability rights advocate, medical educator and ally challenging the pathologisation of intersex and other LGBTQ+ people in healthcare and medical education. His advocacy contributed to a 2020 recommendation by the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights to ban medically unnecessary intersex surgeries. He has also developed an Inclusive Language Audit Tool, advanced trans-affirmative medical competencies and supported India’s first student-led medical-school club focused on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics.
