@mrkobesmith at the Wilson Center, 2019
Meet Kobe Smith: one of the pillars of GRPA and of Fòs Feminista
Guyana is a small country located in the Caribbean with less than one million inhabitants. And it’s the only country in the region, besides Cuba, where abortion is legal. However, getting an abortion in the country is still challenging due to the lack of information, stigma, and the limited availability of sexual and reproductive health services.
This is why the work of GRPA, the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association, is critical. GRPA is a Fòs Feminista partner organization that provides services and protects the sexual and reproductive rights of Guyanese, as well as those of thousands of Venezuelan refugees and migrants drawn to Guyana by the prospect of a brighter future.
One of the pillars of GRPA and of Fòs Feminista is Kobe Smith, who began volunteering at GRPA when he was 15 years old and has been a member of the Board of Directors of Fòs Feminista since 2017.
When he was in high school, Kobe realized that teen pregnancy was a reality he saw everywhere. Through a teacher, he was introduced to GRPA where he began to participate in sex education activities in schools, and in decision-making spaces to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Kobe quickly became a leader, participating in meetings of the Organization of American States and the United Nations to represent the voices of Caribbean youth in negotiations for human rights, development, and health. Ensuring that Caribbean nations are represented in regional bodies is critical to Kobe because, as small countries, they are sometimes overlooked in continental affairs.
Back in Guyana, Kobe has contributed to national laws and policies on a variety of issues, including adolescent and youth rights, and responding to gender-based violence. One of his favorite topics to work on is new masculinities, as toxic masculinity has a tremendous impact on gender-based violence and femicides.
“We men have to learn that there are many ways to be men. We don’t have to be rigid and dominant. There are men with diverse sexual orientations, gender expressions, and just different personalities”
In Guyana, sodomy is forbidden by law, being the only country in South America where sex between adult men is a crime.
In 2017, Kobe won Guyana’s National Youth Award and has won several recognitions from international organizations before and since then. The Guyana Chronicle, the country’s leading newspaper, said of Kobe last year, “At just the age of 22, Kobe Smith is a human rights defender and has managed to achieve a whole lot for not only himself, but also for those whom he advocates on behalf of.”
Kobe is now preparing to participate in spaces such as the International Conference on Family Planning in Thailand and projects with UNFPA at the local level in Guyana.
One of the things Kobe enjoys most is eating roti and curry and drinking Coca Cola. His favorite singers are Adele and Sam Smith. He is an excellent reciter of poems and a great dancer of Caribbean music. His joy for life is contagious and listening to him speaking in public, at a conference or in an interview, is captivating.
Thanks to leaders like Kobe, civil society movements are strengthened, and these movements in turn allow leaders like Kobe to inspire other young people, showing them that it does not matter how old you are in order to make a difference in society.
