Melusi Simelane holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree in Marketing from the University of Eswatini (2021) and completed the Obama Foundation Scholars Program at Columbia University in New York (2022). Having been selected by the US State Department to participate in the International Visitors Leadership Program in 2017, Melusi continues to advocate for marginalised communities’ acceptance and legal rights and build intersectional human rights coalitions to empower young leaders and activists across Southern Africa.
Melusi was the founding director of Eswatini Sexual & Gender Minorities, the country’s first membership-based LGBTQ organisation which aims to increase awareness of the social and systematic exclusion of LGBTQ citizens. He led the realisation of the country’s first LGBTQ Pride in 2018, celebrated worldwide.
Melusi’s work aims to position the day-to-day human experience as a central part of broader justice and international human rights movements in Southern Africa.