When our community is spoken about in the media it can sometimes come across as though we are all the same, a small group of gays who want to walk through town singing and dancing.  Of course the truth is very different, the thing that makes our community the strong empowering entity it is, is it’s diversity, our diversity.  Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and a host of other non-hetro people come together, there are many colours to our rainbow and that is what makes it powerful and beautiful.

Yesterday saw the official launch of ‘LGBT Diversity Programme’, an initiative designed to support LGBT people and to coordinate preexisting groups.  According to the website

The Programme will facilitate LGBT organisations and activists to collectively mobilise and engage with the wider community in order to advocate strategically and effectively on gender and sexuality issues. The ultimate aim of the Programme is to promote an Ireland that celebrates diversity, where LGBT people are an integral part of society

The organisation is set up with an independent chair person and five programme staff.  It is a coordinated national response by nine LGBT organisations including BeLongTo, TENI, Outhouse and several regional groups.  Anna Nolan will serve as ambassador for the Programme.

You can listen to the launch speeches in the following video

There will be several working groups which look very interesting, including a parents research working group and also the programme’s site has an extensive resources page.

I have to say that the individual groups at work deserve a great deal of credit for all that they do but to see an organised effort to coordinate them must be a welcome support mechanism, especially in rural areas.  The website of this programme is well worth a look, you can have a browse through the extensive work this programme intends to take on here.

The name says it all, there is power in diversity.

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