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How to support Pride this year
GiveOut has launched the COVID-19 LGBTQI Global Solidarity Fund to support LGBTQI organisations around the world respond to this crisis. This Pride, we are asking businesses to support the Fund, showing their ongoing commitment to their LGBTQI colleagues and communities.
In the face of COVID-19, Pride events worldwide have been cancelled or moved online. Many LGBTQI people are being badly impacted by the crisis, struggling to access healthcare and emergency support, being scapegoated, and even facing serious human rights abuses.
During this crisis, our communities around the world are relying more than ever on the support – and protection – of LGBTQI organisations. And these organisations are relying more than ever on the support of our community globally.
How your business can get involved
Sponsor the Fund to mark Pride. GiveOut is seeking headline sponsors for the Fund at the level of £5,000+. Over Pride, we are asking businesses to consider donating some of the budgets that would otherwise have been used for in-person events and celebrations. Donations at any level will be helpful.
Online Pride events. Support the Fund, by holding an online Pride fundraiser with your staff networks. GiveOut can provide support, organise speakers and set up an online fundraising page.
Match employee donations. Doubling individual donations to the Fund raised through staff fundraising.
Celebrating your support this Pride:
We will highlight and thank all corporate sponsors on our website and social media channels.
We will create special promotional materials for social media to celebrate your contribution.
We would be pleased to arrange speakers and provide bespoke support for online Pride events.
We want to make it as easy as possible for your business to get involved. To make a donation, set up a customised fundraising page, and to discuss how we can celebrate your contribution, please contact GiveOut’s Executive Director Rupert Abbott at rupert@giveout.org.
LGBTQI people at risk
Already vulnerable, LGBTQI people are being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in particular ways.
We are struggling to access health care, including essential HIV medications and hormone treatments. This is compounded in places where we already face barriers to healthcare due to discrimination and stigmatisation. In countries including India and China, LGBTQI organisations have mobilised volunteer networks to deliver anti-retroviral medications to LGBTQI people with HIV.
Already more likely to face economic hardship, we are experiencing the devastation of our livelihoods as we lose our jobs and homes. For example, in the Caribbean tourism accounts for 50 to 90 per cent of GDP and employment in some countries. GiveOut’s grant partners in the region, TransWave and the United Caribbean Trans Network, have received an exponential growth in requests for shelter and food from trans people who are more likely to rely on tourism or sex work as their primary source of income.
We are disproportionately affected by mental ill-health and social isolation, which is being exacerbated in the context of quarantine and restricted movement.
We are being scapegoated for the pandemic, with religious leaders in some countries deeming the virus punishment for LGBTQI acceptance, including in Israel, Iraq, Liberia and the USA.
We are facing serious human rights abuses, including the arrest of 19 people at an LGBTQI shelter in Uganda; and in Hungary, the State of Emergency has been used to pass a bill that prevents transgender people from legally changing their gender in identity documents.
We are more likely to rely on extended chosen family structures which may be disrupted by the pandemic, with many LGBTQI people forced to return to the parental or familial home. Some of us are trapped in abusive situations as domestic and family violence increase worldwide.
Supporting our community
While the LGBTQI movement worldwide is woefully under-funded, it is in the Global South and East where it is even more difficult for LGBTQI organisations to access support. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also in these regions where health facilities and infrastructure may not be as well resourced. As such, in line with GiveOut’s focus, we are prioritising support to LGBTQI organisations in these regions, as well as to our existing grant partners.
The more money we fundraise, the more LGBTQI organisations we will be able to support. So far, we are supporting seven partners under the Fund:
Access Chapter 2, which works to protect and promote the human rights of LGBTQI people, women and girls in South Africa.
ASEAN SOGIE Caucus, a network of LGBTQI human rights organisations working across Southeast Asia.
The Commonwealth Equality Network, a network of LGBTQI activists working across Commonwealth countries supported by Kaleidoscope Trust.
The Other Foundation, an organisation working to advance LGBTQI human rights through supporting the movement across Southern Africa.
TransWave, Jamaica’s first and leading trans organisation.
United Caribbean Trans Network (UCTRANS), a network of trans activists and organisations across 10 Caribbean countries.
An LGBTQI group that will remain anonymous as they are working in a highly sensitive and restricted context.
Protecting people at risk
Many LGBTQI people are facing economic hardship or fleeing unsafe living situations. In response, LGBTQI organisations have established safe houses, and others are providing online support groups and social spaces.
GiveOut is supporting TransWave’s Trans Emergency Fund, which is being used to provide direct financial support and care packages of essential items to trans people in Jamaica. They have so far received 40 requests for support, and aim to provide an additional 200 people with assistance using GiveOut’s grant.
Supporting access to health
LGBTQI organisations around the world, including the anonymous partner supported under the Fund, are coordinating volunteer networks to help their communities access healthcare information and services. Other organisations have launched networks of mutual aid and social solidarity to support the most vulnerable LGBTQI people, or have moved their counselling and befriending services online to ensure that these remain accessible.
In Southern Africa, GiveOut is supporting The Other Foundation with a grant towards their emergency relief programme, providing LGBTQI organisations across the region with funding to purchase essential Personal Protective Equipment such as PPE, sanitisers, and masks. GiveOut is also supporting Access Chapter 2 to work on the frontline of the pandemic, including providing LGBTQI-focused contact tracing work, ensuring that LGBTQI people have access to information and services, and advocating for LGBTQI human rights during the pandemic.
Similarly, in the Caribbean, GiveOut is supporting the United Caribbean Trans Network to deliver emergency supplies to trans individuals, including food, masks and hand sanitisers, and phone cards to stay in contact in the event of illness, human rights abuses or other difficult circumstances during the pandemic.
Advocating for LGBTQI communities
LGBTQI organisations including the ASEAN SOGIE Caucus and TransWave are conducting research to ensure that the specific needs of LGBTQI people are accounted for as countries adjust and develop their responses to the pandemic. They have also moved online their advocacy and policy work, education, information provision and training for activists and communities.
GiveOut is supporting ASEAN SOGIE Caucus to make small grants to grassroots LGBTQI organisations across Southeast Asia, as they adapt to the crisis and readjust their work plans, and provide emergency support to their communities.
Internationally, GiveOut is supporting The Commonwealth Equality Network (TCEN) through the Kaleidoscope Trust. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, Kaleidoscope Trust conducted a consultation with 41 activists from 37 Commonwealth countries, providing valuable insight into how LGBTQI people, activists and civil society organisations are being impacted.
About GiveOut
GiveOut is an award-winning charity working to grow giving to support the global struggle for LGBTQI human rights, ensuring that activists and their organisations have more of the resources they need to defend their communities and campaign for equality.
Our grants team identifies potential beneficiaries, conducts due diligence, frames grant agreements, and manages granting and reporting, overseen by GiveOut’s Grant-Making Advisory Panel and governed by its Board of Trustees. The impact of the Fund in terms of progress and successes will be reported back to donors and externally.
UK focused Appeals
We recognise that our community in the UK is also facing significant challenges in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. GiveOut stands in solidarity with the whole LGBTQI charity sector as it responds to the crisis. To support the community in the UK in these unprecedented times, visit these charity websites for more information:
GiveOut | 3rd Floor | Thomas Ford House | 23-24 Smithfield Street London | EC1A 9LF
GiveOut is a charity registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (Registered Charity Number 1176434).