The Network is delighted to provide this commendation statement to our and Dorset Race Equality Council’s, fantastic BU team:
The LGBT+ Network for Change (https://lgbtnetwork4change.com/) wishes to formally commend Bournemouth University’s Events Management Team for their enablement of the LGBT+ International Film Festival project.
This was developed at the request of the Network in conjunction with Dorset Race Equality Council (https://www.dorsetrec.org.uk/) to enable in the BCP and Dorset area, and nationally, an appropriate educational information initiative that effectively highlights the complex nature of the ethnic minority (including international level and LGBT+ refugee and asylum applicants) LGBT+ & LGBTQ+ ‘intersectional’ community’s experience of prejudice and minimal practical support.
This LGBT+ community is one of the most, to date, marginalised of all LGBT+ communities, with particularly high experienced poor mental health caused by prejudice and a dire wont of structured, practical easily accessed statutory sector support — for reference, as an example, ethnic minority LGBT+ community members constitute a highly disproportionate percentage of the LGBT+ homeless community.
The film festival project, as developed by the fantastic — ALL female! — BU Events Management Team, gives both Bournemouth/BCP & Dorset, and Bournemouth University itself, a unique place for building in the 2020s a truly LGBT+ & BAME/BME/ethnic minorities intersectional community welcoming, inclusive, truly Prejudice-Free society and country. The BU Events Management Team in this are with the Network and DREC literally making history — the project is therefore the start of an exciting new phase of meaningful equality diversity inclusion.
The project’s timing could not be more appropriate given the grim realities of 2+ decades of brutal oppression of LGBT+ community members in Russia — more LGBT+ community members will be seeking refuge from that land and of course from the Ukraine currently menaced by the regime of the latter.
This project will help therefore in a tangible way to ensure that such LGBT+ community members come to a UK that is more informed at general public and UK Government given department officials levels about our ethnic minorities – LGBT+ intersectional community’s needs, and indeed courage in the face of particularly intense and often brutal prejudice & persecution.
Next steps, and thanks to the main funder (National Lottery, Awards for All) of the Network that made our work possible:
Directly, the project will help us with our NHS mental health services (DHC ‘Steps 2 Wellbeing) staff and LGBTQ+ patients support work, with our prisons/Portland Prison/HMPPS, and our LGBTQ+ homeless initiatives as in all three areas the particular additional support and awareness needs of our intersectional community members are especially clear. Finally, we wish to thank the National Lottery (Awards for All) for the crucial role their funding contributed to the project for the Network.
Alan Mercel-Sanca
LGBT+ Network for Change
This badly needed project has a social media profile — for Twitter, please see: https://mobile.twitter.com/AllForOne_bu