NUS LGBT Activist Training
Last week, Takeshi, Ruth, Andy, Nat, Stewart and Dave (VP Student Rights & Diversity) travelled to Oxford to attend the NUS LGBT Activist Training Day (South regsion), hosted by Oxford Brookes Student Union. Representatives from many of the NUS LGBT groups in the South of England were there, though I think Reading had the most delegates there!
Some of us attended a workshop about running a good LGBT society, while others attended a workshop on campaigning and activism, so between us all we have gained some useful skills for making our LGBT society really good!
We had a talk by Stephen Hobobo, a prominent LGBT rights campaigner from Changing Attitude Nigeria, who really opened up our eyes to the prejudice that LGBT people face in Nigeria, and the lack of rights that they have. It can be so easy to forget that despite some shortfalls, these days LGBT people in the UK do enjoy a fair few rights that we can end up taking for granted.
This led us into a kind of brainstorming session for how we as LGBT societies can take action on the campaigns being run by NUS LGBT:
- Bullying Sucks - combatting homophobic and transphobic bullying in HE and FE
- Donation Not Discrimination - campaigning for the blood ban on gay & bisexual men to be lifted
- LGBT History Month - ways to celebrate and educate LGBT history during February
- Love Without Borders - campaigning for LGBT equality in other countries.
There were some really good ideas which we hope to implement in our future campaigns, so watch this space!
Throughout the day and after the training we had the opportunity to network with delegates from other LGBT groups in the region. It was interesting to learn about how other groups were running, and there was a wide variety in the size of the groups and how active they are... I'm happy to say that Reading LGBT definitely appears to be one of the more active ones! Go us!
There were a great deal of contacts made (evidenced by the big Facebook adding frenzy after the event!) and hopefully this means that we can form closer links with other LGBT groups in the region, to organise joint and co-ordinated activities. It was a very interesting day, if you'd like to hear more about it just ask one of us!
Some of us attended a workshop about running a good LGBT society, while others attended a workshop on campaigning and activism, so between us all we have gained some useful skills for making our LGBT society really good!
We had a talk by Stephen Hobobo, a prominent LGBT rights campaigner from Changing Attitude Nigeria, who really opened up our eyes to the prejudice that LGBT people face in Nigeria, and the lack of rights that they have. It can be so easy to forget that despite some shortfalls, these days LGBT people in the UK do enjoy a fair few rights that we can end up taking for granted.
This led us into a kind of brainstorming session for how we as LGBT societies can take action on the campaigns being run by NUS LGBT:
- Bullying Sucks - combatting homophobic and transphobic bullying in HE and FE
- Donation Not Discrimination - campaigning for the blood ban on gay & bisexual men to be lifted
- LGBT History Month - ways to celebrate and educate LGBT history during February
- Love Without Borders - campaigning for LGBT equality in other countries.
There were some really good ideas which we hope to implement in our future campaigns, so watch this space!
Throughout the day and after the training we had the opportunity to network with delegates from other LGBT groups in the region. It was interesting to learn about how other groups were running, and there was a wide variety in the size of the groups and how active they are... I'm happy to say that Reading LGBT definitely appears to be one of the more active ones! Go us!
There were a great deal of contacts made (evidenced by the big Facebook adding frenzy after the event!) and hopefully this means that we can form closer links with other LGBT groups in the region, to organise joint and co-ordinated activities. It was a very interesting day, if you'd like to hear more about it just ask one of us!
posted by TK at
20:29
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