The Global Interfaith Network for People of All Sexes, Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities and Expressions (GIN-SSOGIE) is delighted to announce the appointment of Toni Kruger-Ayebazibwe as its new Executive Director from 1 December 2017.
Toni has been employed as a Transitional Consultant by GIN since March of 2017 and in this time has demonstrated successfully her ability to manage difficult processes and achieve outputs. The human resources subcommittee of GIN has unanimously recommended Toni to the Board to be our next Executive Director and the Board has unanimously approved the recommendation.
As Judith Kotze, Chair of the HR sub-committee, and Board co-chair, notes,
“We believe that Toni will make an excellent leader for GIN as a visionary, brave, network builder and leader. She has the skills that GIN needs right now to continue growing, build relationships with its members, and make its presence felt in the world.”
Ymania Brown, Board Co-Chair and Treasurer says,
“It’s important to see an organisation like GIN, with it’s somewhat tumultuous beginning, appointing someone who will bring stability to the organisation. Toni has a solid, clear understanding of what is required.”
Toni brings a range of expertise stretching from management to technology and design and theology. She has qualifications in Communication Science, English and Philosophy and is currently completing her Master’s degree in Theology at St Augustine College, a private Catholic university in Johannesburg. She is a lay minister in the Anglican Church, and is pursuing ordination in the Metropolitan Community Church denomination.
As a white, South African, middle-class, lesbian, cis woman, Toni recognises the complexity of multiple intersections of privilege and oppression, and the roles that she, as both a potential perpetrator and an oppressed person, can play in working towards a just world.
“GIN-SSOGIE is an extraordinary organisation, with an extraordinary vision,” says Toni, “and it is both an enormous pleasure and a great challenge to be tasked with moving it forward. I believe that the role that faith can play in challenging the oppression of LGBTI people is an area of work which is ripe for expansion. As people of faith of all SOGI we know that our faith traditions speak to who we are in the world, and also to a vision of how the world should be – a place in which all of us, regardless of gender or sexuality, or any of the other intersections of oppression, can live life in abundance, fully embracing who we are. LGBTI people are also people of faith and it is time that we claim that space back.”
Toni is based in Johannesburg, she is married to Jen and they have one daughter.
