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Anti-Hate Crime Vigil Tonight at 7.30pm- Paint the Town Purple!

Hate Crime Vigil

The Brighton Anti-Hate Crime Vigil, organised by the Brighton & Hove Community Safety Forum (LGBT CSF), will be held tonight,  Saturday, October 19 near the Old Steine fountain at 7.30pm sharp.

Vigils will be taking place simultaneously in cities all over the country to mark the three nail bomb attacks that took place in London in 1999 on April 17, 24 and 30.

The LGBT CSF is an independent community forum of volunteers working with the community to address and improve safety issues throughout Brighton & Hove.

Independent guest speakers from the LGBT voluntary sector and statutory sectors have been invited to attend and make speeches. At 8pm the organisers are asking all those outdoors to hold a minute’s silence and those indoors to make a minute’s noise to remember all those who we have lost and those who continue to be affected by hate crime.

There will be music, readings, messages of support and the THT outreach service will provide warm drinks and biscuits to attendees.

Join in with this year’s national vigil theme and come dressed in purple!

Confirmed guest speakers include:

• Cllr Bill Randall – Deputy Mayor Brighton & Hove

• Caroline Lucas – MP for Brighton Pavilion

• Nancy Platts – Prospective Labour Candidate Kemptown & Peacehaven

• Cllr Geoffrey Theobald – Leader of the Conservative Group on Brighton & Hove Council

• Simon Dowe – Chief Executive Sussex Beacon

• Gary Pargeter – Volunteer project manager at Lunch Positive

• MindOUT – Ed Wheelan

• Jo Rowland Stuart – Regard

• Nick Douglas: LGBT HIP

• Geo Leonard – LGBT Switchboard

• Maurice McHale Parry – Hankie Quilt Project

• Suchitra Chatterjee – Hate Crime Case Worker Sussex Police

• Peter Castleton – Brighton & Hove Community Safety Manager

• Rory Smith, LGBT Caseworker.

The LGBT Community Safety Forum would like to thank Sharon Kent and Graham Stephenson at B&Q Shoreham who arranged for a large marquee to be donated to the forum enabling them to facilitate their outdoor community events whatever the weather.

Message of support have been received from Simon Kirby MP and Katy Bourne – Sussex Police Crime Commissioner. Their message will be read out at the event.

If you would like to speak at this year’s event email: info@lgbt-safety-forum-brighton.com

For more information about Vigil, CLICK HERE: 

For more information about the LGBT Community Safety Forum, CLICK HERE:    

Report highlights problems for LGBTI refugees

Refugee reportMicro Rainbow International (MRI), a pioneering enterprise set up to address the situation of poverty of LGBTI people worldwide, has launched a new report entitled Poverty, Sexual Orientation and Refugees in the UK.

The report, which is the first to be published in the UK on the issues of poverty faced by lesbian and gay refugees, was compiled following MRI consultation over the past year with 50 lesbian and gay refugees in London and Manchester.

Some of the findings show that:

• Lesbian and gay refugees live below the poverty line and are at risk of destitution.

• They are extremely isolated and frequently ostracised by their families and co-nationals.

• There is much misinformation amongst UK employers in relation to refugees’ full entitlement to work and such employers often question the validity of their refugee documents, with the additional accusation or suspicion of forgery.

MRI believes this report is useful not only to give a voice to the many lesbian and gay refugees who find themselves in situations of poverty but also, through its recommendations, to encourage LGBTI, refugee and community organisations, service providers and policy makers to fight poverty among lesbian and gay refugees.

Sebastian Rocca
Sebastian Rocca

Sebastian Rocca, MRI’s founder and CEO, said:

“We hope that this report will start a conversation that is desperately needed: a dialogue that is not only about equal rights, equal opportunities and equal access to services but also about caring and treating each other with respect and dignity.”

To see the full report, CLICK HERE:

For more information, Micro Rainbow International, CLICK HERE:

 

 

 

 

 

Leading academic to warn of deepening crisis of trust in UK institutions

Frank Furedi
Frank Furedi

Leading sociologist Frank Furedi will this weekend launch a stark warning that UK’s public institutions will face more severe crises of trust – such as those currently afflicting the BBC, NHS (from Mid Staffs to the Jimmy Savile scandal) and police (post Plebgate) – unless they make a concerted bid to regain a sense of their own authority.

Speaking at London’s Battle of Ideas festival this weekend (October 19-20 ), Professor Furedi will argue that the “continuous calls for openness, inquiries, transparency and accountability” in the face of revelations over abuse of power has left some of Britain’s most important institutions to outsource their authority rather than critically confront the causes of internal disarray.

Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent, Canterbury, will claim:

“Unmasking authority has become a fashionable enterprise that resonates with popular culture. Those who hold positions of responsibility and of power – politicians, parents, teachers, priests, doctors, nursery workers – are ‘exposed’ continually for abusing their authority… Consequently even those who are formally in authority hesitate about openly exercising their influence. In numerous businesses and public institutions those in positions of responsibility are often far too ready to adopt the now widely practised custom of outsourcing authority to consultants and experts. They rely on the language of ‘research shows….’, ‘experts say…’ or ‘the science concludes’ rather than on their own authoritative voice.“

In his new book Authority: a sociological history (to be launched at the Barbican on Sunday October 20) Furedi counsels against this outsourcing, but also notes that when authority exists in a feeble form, individual freedom is also compromised because so many institutions attempt to compensate for their lack of authority “through rule making, inventing procedures and micro-managing personal life.”

Furedi argues this will backfire because:

“When institutions rely on formal processes such as codes of conduct and transparency they can rarely act authoritatively since these rules are not based on an explicit moral and philosophical system of meaning. That is why rule making inexorably leads to more rule making. The less western culture can affirm authority the more dependent it becomes on the formalising and professionalising of daily life”.

Furedi also notes the irony that this can create even less accountability. If those in authority hand power over, there is a danger of creating a new breed of expert whose authority is considered above question, such as Lord Justice Leveson, victims of abuse, whistle-blowers and campaigning celebrities.

Furedi concludes:

“Those who reject some form of authority as illegitimate frequently embrace others as acceptable. For example, so many critics of the teachers’ authority over the class room invite us to serve as ‘mentors’, ‘facilitators’ or ‘role models’ to children. Similarly, in a world where the clergy is sometimes denounced for its authoritarian and abusive behaviour, or the victim that is often endowed with moral authority…although authority can be undermined it cannot be quite abolished.”

Rather than seek to safeguard against such abuses through further regulation and transparency, Furedi instead calls upon society to seriously debate both the purpose of authority and the institutions who wield it, arguing that in its absence we are seeing the ‘unravelling of public life’ and a resulting ‘moral disorientation.’

Furedi is one of 400 speakers at the Battle of Ideas, an annual festival of public debate taking place at London’s Barbican on October 19-20, organised by the Institute of Ideas.

For more information CLICK HERE:  www.battleofideas.org.uk

Exeter City FC continue to promote equality and diversity in football

Exeter City FC

Exeter City FC will be celebrating the role of women and girls in football at its specially designated One Game One Community (OGOC) home game against Burton Albion on Saturday, October 26.

Each season the Supporters’ Trust backed Exeter City OGOC group to organise a match with an equality and diversity theme. Previous events have put the spotlight on issues including racism, homophobia and disability. This year the focus is on promoting female participation in football.

The choice has been applauded by City’s new OGOC Ambassador, first team goalkeeper Artur Krysiak. “Football is a game for everyone and it is great to see so many women and girls getting involved as players, fans and in lots of other roles” said Artur.

The Devon FA is helping to encourage more of this involvement by hosting a stand prior to the game to give female fans the chance to explore opportunities in football from playing to coaching and refereeing. The stand will be in the Red Square area of the stadium.

Several local women and girls football teams will be watching the match including Moors Youth Under 12s, Newton Fire, Feniton Ladies and Exeter and Tedburn Rangers.

The Rangers’ Ladies Manager, Rod Hawker, supported the OGOC initiative.

She said:

“Whether or not some girls or women choose to play football is less important than ensuring all girls and women have the choice and opportunity to play the game”.

Local female youngsters will be showing off their skills at half time when members of the Exeter City Girls Player Development Centre will be undertaking the half time shoot out.

The City and Burton players, wearing their OGOC shirts, will be led out by some of the girls prior to kick off.

Also being profiled will be the Exeter City Ladies team. The afternoon’s bucket collection will aid their funds and before the game three of their players, Helen Kukor, Tash Knapman and Lola Garcia Sanchez will receive their kit sponsorship from the Exeter City Supporters’ Trust.

One Game One Community is part of the national Kick it Out campaign which aims to address all types of discrimination in football.

To contact the Exeter City OGOC group: EMAIL:  kickitout@exetercityfc.co.uk

 

 

LETTER TO EDITOR: Lets get our priorities right!

In reply to your editorial comments about a ‘something for nothing culture’ and community tickets for Pride in October Gscene.

Firstly I do a bit of voluntary work and I do not expect to be given freebies just because of this. I volunteer because I believe in what I am doing, not for I hope to gain from it. However, there is another aspect of the ‘something for nothing culture’.

I have worked in mental health for over ten years and I have seen what this culture can do to those who suffer with enduring mental health problems – there becomes an expectation. This expectation can sometimes lead to the institutionalisation of an individual and make them dependent on their diagnoses. In mental health, if you keep offering freebies such as free tickets to Pride and other similar events/things an individual may lose sight of the real world; becoming more and more dependent on services and more dependent on the mental health worker/system. You might as well have kept the old institutions like St Frances open where the mentally ill lived their whole life at the hospital.

This dependency on a mental health diagnoses can also be seen with the benefits system of the welfare state. If an individual receives a benefit that gives that person a ‘life style’ that person may have an investment in their diagnoses to maintain that life style; there would be no point in recovery if financially you are worse off.

On several occasions I have had a discussion with a patient who assumes I am better off financially because I am working. Yet when we have compared that person’s benefits to my take home wage, the response has been ‘why should I get better?’  Even if it is in the care plan of a person suffering from an enduring mental health condition to go to an event like Pride, they should pay the price that everyone else is paying – welcome to the real world. If you’re a volunteer or a worker for an organisation there is no reason why you shouldn’t be paying full price for your ticket as well.

Finally, I agree we should be concentrating first and foremost on raising more money at Pride for worthy organisations like MindOut so they can continue their fantastic work and stop any freebee culture getting out of hand.

To read the original letter, CLICK HERE:

 

 

RUSSELL BRAND – Messiah Complex: Brighton Centre: Review

ZZ3EE63356While there is, of course, a place for dourness, cynicism and misanthropy in comedy, sometimes a performer as innately likeable and warm-hearted as Russell Brand makes a very welcome change. I don’t think it’s just his shtick, I feel Brand really is the cheeky chappy of his stage persona. A particularly filthy cheeky chappy perhaps, but one who’s so eager to gain a rapport with the audience he spends the first ten minutes of the show hugging various members of it.

Messiah Complex is a funny, intelligent and bawdy look at those people society rightly or wrongly (and usually it’s a bit of both) looks up to. He takes in the vacuity of celebrity culture (almost shamefacedly admitting to being a part of this particular problem), concluding we should chose our own heroes as if not they may be foisted upon us.

The show is loosely based around his admiration of Gandhi, Che Guevera, Jesus and Malcolm X. All great men, though their flaws ranged from pimping to something very close to uxoricide. But there are many digressions ranging from Brand’s wonder at the immensity of the universe to his belief in God to the pure evil that is the Daily Mail. I also learned that Hitler and part-Jewish gay philosopher Wittgenstein were both educated at the same school. Which obviously means something, but no one’s really quite sure what.

There are some great jokes – I always feel it’s pointless writing them down as on the page they lose 90% of their power which, especially with someone like Brand, comes from the performance. Messiah Complex is a wildly entertaining, funny, educational and strangely uplifting evening.

Russell Brand – Messiah Complex will be at the Brighton Centre on March 15, 2014.

For tickets, CLICK HERE.

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