Europia Community Session with Manchester Pride

On Tuesday the 22nd March Europia had a chance to present at the Community Sessions organised by Manchester Pride.⭐💙

The sessions aim to spotlight grassroot organisations that support intersectional LGBTQ+ communities.

In our session, we introduced our organisation and talked about the importance of supporting and empowering European nationals in their journey of sexual orientation and gender identity.

We then moved onto storytelling and heard from our amazing co-workers and friends about their difficulties as LGBTQ+ members in different countries such as Poland and Ukraine. 

We ended the session with a discussion where we have discussed two questions, below are the thoughts and outcomes of our discussion.

How can the #LGBTQ+ community become more #inclusive/culturally appropriate to migrant members of the community?

Build Awareness 

• Going into spaces that aren’t ‘’queer’’ so people in the closet can engage
• Building on awareness of intersectional identities 
• Understanding the LGBTQ+ situation in all countries 
• Giving voice to LGBTQ+ people from Eastern European via large organisations platform

Build opportunities for immigrants to engage with the LGBTQ+ community

• Resources in different languages
• LGBTQ+ groups should have more storytelling sessions with migrants and speakers sharing their story and talking about their countries
• More social events and advice sessions for immigrants should be created so not only they can feel welcomed in the community but also meet new people.
• Building compassion through finding similarities between group
• More community work to be done. Introductions to communities and making the effort to jump over barriers whether language or cultural.
• Promote various interests groups eg. outdoor activities for the immigrant community.
• Support groups 
• ‘Buddy system’ for people to feel more included UK + CEE native person to go to events together 

Similarities between the issues faced by the LGBTQ+ community here and in other CEE countries – think of creative solutions on improvement for all communities

Lack of minority representation 

• Actively include minorities & under-represented groups in both major and minor events, discussions etc.
• We should arrange a big meeting that is going to unite all the LGBTQ+ communities, here and in other countries. We should work hand in hand with other charities and organisations in other countries.
• We can arrange online groups for people from other countries that would enable early support for people arriving in the UK.
• Offer migration/Immigration advice that is free or cheap – make links with other communities that need the same thing to work as a big community

Fear

• Support for the people who are afraid of prosecution 
• Legislation is being passed that makes part of your identity illegal (trans issues in particular)
• Family rejection – a solution: chosen family, education via conversations, media and gatherings
• Older generations do not  always understand – more positive representation is needed
• Building bridges with sympathetic non-LGBTQ+ communities
• Racism + classism is still a big problem in the LGBTQ+ community in the UK too. Even if it doesn’t personally affect us, we need to challenge it.
• The issue of coming out, and accepting yourself. More meetings like today and mixing communities is the solution.

The storytelling by our colleagues and friends was a great success not only in the discussion we had, but also in the attendees feedback. We are looking forward to working with Manchester Pride to make the LGBTQ+ community here in Manchester more accessible to Central and Eastern European nationals and fight for a better future for all.