Former England Rugby international Ben Cohen yesterday visited The Elmgreen School in Tulse Hill, south London, to support leading anti-bullying charity Diversity Role Models (DRM).
YEAR nine students at the school were participating in DRM’s ground-breaking workshops that tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying.
The Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation already supports DRM financially, but this is the first time that Ben has seen DRM’s workshops up close. By breaking down misconceptions and negative stereotypes, the workshops help address the root causes of homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying and dispel prejudice.
Suran Dickson, Chief Executive of Diversity Role Models, said:“We’re very proud to be supported by the Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation, and we’re delighted to have Ben join us today in Lambeth. Together, Diversity Role Models and the StandUp Foundation send a strong message to young people, that diversity is a positive force in our society and all of us need to work together to challenge bullying.”
Ben Cohen, MBE, added:“We are very happy to be in a position to support Diversity Role Models. They deliver a fantastic programme and we are really looking forward to seeing their work first hand. We truly believe that working collaboratively with quality organisations like DRM can bring an end to bullying.”
The Hand In Hand LGBT Choir Festival, taking place from June 12-14, has received a huge boost in national recognition.
FIRSTLY, the National Lottery’sBig Lottery Fund has agreed to provide a significant grant to support the event and Co-Operative Funeralcare have agreed to get on board as the headline sponsor of the event.
The team organising the Hand In Hand Festival, made up of members from both Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus and Rainbow Chorus, said: “We sent up a collective cheer when we heard about the supportive offers from both the Lottery and Co-Operative Funeralcare. The Hand In Hand Festival will be the largest event of its kind to have been held in this charismatic and diverse city, putting Brighton & Hove once again firmly on the national stage. Over a year in the planning, this additional financial support should help us deliver exactly the type of event we have been hoping too!”
25 LBGT choirs from all over the UK & Ireland have already registered to attend including from Manchester, London, Bristol and Southampton. Over 400 individual delegates have also registered so far. With a maximum of 500 delegate places available, they are selling out fast!
The local community in Brighton & Hove can get involved in showing their support for this exciting event by attending the fabulous Hand In Hand LGBT Choir Festival Concert put on by a number of the choirs at 7.30pm on Saturday, June 13, in the Brighton Dome Concert Hall.
Songs performed will range from classical and traditional music through to chart topping gay anthems. It’s all for a good cause, the choirs will be helping raise funds for a number of local charities, including the Sussex Beacon and Lunch Positive.
Older and Out will be holding their next social on Friday, May 9 from 1-3pm at the Somerset Day Centre in Kemptown.
OLDER and Out is a social group for older LGBT people. There is no need to book, just turn up, introduce yourself and tuck into some lunch.
A talk will be given by Craig Hanlon-Smith who has performed extensively in Fringe Theatre, including writing, producing and performing work at both The Brighton and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals with Continuum Productions.
Craig Hanlon-Smith
During the past fifteen years he has taught a wide range of theatre skills in both Further and Higher Education across London and the South East, including directing student work at The Academy of Creative Training in Brighton.
Craig has written a monthly column for Brighton based GScene magazine for more than ten years in support of and sometimes challenging the LGBT community.
He is currently working with MadEdTheatre on two projects: Where Butterflies Go: a verbatim theatre piece examining the challenges faced by the older LGBT community and My Brothers and Sisters, a Theatre In Education piece addressing the perceived radicalisation of young people.
Craig is also working on his own project 28 Days Clear and is in the process of recruiting volunteers from the older LGBT community who wish to share stories from their past, present and future in preparation for Where Butterflies Go, which is due to go into production for The Brighton and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals in 2016.
Somerset Day Centre is situated on the ground floor and is fully wheelchair accessible.
You can take any bus going up St James Street, alight at the bus stop opposite St Mary’s Church, cross the road and the day centre is on the left past the church. For more information telephone: 01273 699000
Event: Older and Older featuring a talk from Craig Hanlon-Smith
Where: Somerset Day Centre, 62 St James’s Street, Brighton
The Sussex Beacon are looking for volunteers who enjoy dealing with people and would like to work on reception, and support departments such as Fundraising and Finance with administration activities.
RECEPTION activities will include: meeting and greeting people, dealing with telephone calls, putting callers through to the correct department, taking messages and making visitors feel welcome.
Administrative activities may include: filing, photocopying, envelope stuffing and basic computer work.
The Sussex Beacon is a unique centre providing innovative services to meet the changing needs of people living with HIV. They are an independent charity and centre of excellence providing a range of specialist HIV treatment and support services. Working in partnership with their clients and service providers, they offer effective high quality care to enable choice, self-management and well being.
For more information and to complete an application form, click here:
Stonewall name Sirina-Monique and Christian Webb its Young Campaigners of the Year 2015.
STONEWALL, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans equality charity, welcomed Gok Wan as host of its annual Youth Awards on Friday, April 24, kindly supported by Lloyds Banking Group.
Sirina-Monique and Christian Webb were named Stonewall Young Campaigners of the Year for their work to improve the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people.
Sirina-Monique and Gok Wan
Sirina-Monique from Peterborough was named joint-winner for writing, recording and creating a music video for a rap tackling discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people. She also helped train teachers at her college on tackling homophobic language and met with its senior staff to discuss equality and diversity issues within it.
Gok Wan and Christian Webb
Christian Webb from Swansea went back to his old school where he created a Sixth Form Equality Panel of over thirty students, delivered workshops to over 200 young people and hosted a coffee morning where he shared Stonewall resources with students and staff.
Wayne Dhesi, Youth Coordinator at Stonewall said:“Sirina-Monique and Christian have both done an outstanding job and we’re thrilled to name them Stonewall’s 2015 Young Campaigners of the Year. We’ve been really impressed with the entire group of volunteers on year’s programme, who have all done excellent work improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people in their schools and local communities.”
Gok Wan said:“It’s inspiring to speak with and meet so many passionate, driven young people who want to help improve the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans children. Stonewall’s youth outreach work is so important and I’m delighted to be a part of that at this year’s Youth Awards.”
Alison Brittain, Lloyds Banking Group Director for Retail, said:“It was an inspiration to meet so many young volunteers who are passionate about eradicating homophobia in their communities. Lloyds Banking Group is extremely proud of our partnership with Stonewall. Supporting the Youth Volunteering Programme is very important to us as a responsible business as it works so closely with the communities across Britain.”
The Stonewall Youth Awards marked the end of this year’s Stonewall Youth Volunteering Programme, supported by Lloyds Banking Group. The free six-month Programme launched in 2009 helps hundreds of young people develop and run campaigns to tackle discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people.
During European Immunisation Week, Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) is urging HPV vaccination to be extended to all boys and men who have sex with men.
THT, the UK’s largest HIV and sexual health charity has said the HPV vaccine needs to be extended to all boys and men who have sex with men (MSM), “as a matter of urgency”.
On Tuesday THT attended the European Men’s Health Forum (EMHF) HPV Symposium in London, coinciding with European Immunisation Week (April 20-25 ) where delegates were told of the health impact of not vaccinating boys against the human papillomavirus (HPV).
A vaccination programme against HPV began in 2008 in the UK for girls aged 12–13 to stop them being at risk of developing cervical cancer, which is caused by the human papillomavirus.
However, emerging research over the past 8 years has found that cancers of the head, mouth, throat, penis and anus can also be caused by strains of the virus.
Heterosexual men gain indirect protection from the virus through “herd protection” if a majority of women in the population are vaccinated. But if men have relationships with women who did not receive the vaccine they are at risk of contracting HPV and developing cancers.
This includes the women who were older than 18 in 2008 when the programme was introduced, the 15 per cent of girls who have not been reached by the vaccination programme, and the majority of women outside the UK worldwide who are unvaccinated. Additionally the current programme offers no protection to men who have sex with men (MSM).
HPV is known to spread through genital or oral contact. It can cause cervical, penile, anal and throat cancers, as well as genital and anal warts. MSM, and particularly those living with HIV, are at high risk of HPV-related cancers as well as genital warts. In addition, people with HPV are at higher risk of acquiring or passing on HIV.
There is a significant and growing rate of anal cancer in MSM. Anal cancer rates in MSM are equivalent to the rates that existed for cervical cancer in women before 1988, when the Government introduced the cervical cancer screening programme.
The estimated incidence of anal cancer in MSM is 35/100,000 per year, and for HIV positive MSM, this is estimated to be 70–100 cases per 100,000. Figures from Public Health England show there were 47,549 cases of genital warts recorded in men in 2011. There were also 2,141 recorded cases of anal, oral or penile cancers in men in 2011.
Since October 2013 the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has been considering whether men who have sex with men (MSM) and/or adolescent boys should also be offered the vaccine.
The JCVI made an initial recommendation in November 2014 that MSM aged 16-40 should be offered the vaccine in GUM clinics and HIV clinics. However, the JCVI delayed making its full recommendation until October 2015, following concerns from GUM clinics that the cost for administering the vaccine for MSM would make it not cost-effective.
Dr Shaun Griffin
Dr Shaun Griffin, Executive Director of External Affairs at Terrence Higgins Trust said:“We believe that the HPV vaccine should be extended to all boys irrespective of their sexuality and to MSM as a matter of urgency. This is why we are working with other health organisations as a member of HPV Actionto call for the school HPV vaccination programme to include boys as well as girls. The significant and growing rate of anal and other HPV-related cancers in Europe was described a ‘time bomb’ at the meeting this week. Each delay leaves these groups unprotected against HPV-related cancers. These inequalities urgently need to be addressed by the next Government.”
Many same-sex couples arranging civil partnerships and marriage encounter hostility.
NEW research shows that many same-sex couples arranging civil partnerships and marriage ceremonies encounter hostility and disrespect from families, colleagues and the public.
However, others did find respect and affection when they announced their decision, Dr Mike Thomas told the British Sociological Association’s annual conference in Glasgow on Friday, April 17, 2015.
Dr Thomas, of the University of Kent, interviewed 13 gay couples and five lesbian couples in the UK, and another 27 same-sex couples in California and Canada. They were aged between 21 and 75 and had been together for up to 40 years.
His research was carried out from 2010-12, after legislation was passed in the UK to allow same-sex civil partnerships but before same-sex weddings were legalised in 2014. Same-sex marriage had been legal in California and Canada during his research.
Dr. Mike Thomas
Dr Thomas told the conference: “a number of narratives highlighted what couples interpreted as being denied respect or recognition, or not being listened to. Equally, these stories revealed a sense of powerlessness and a degree of anger, resentment, and fatalism about the disrespect couples received.Negative reactions from family members were a regular theme.”
In the UK, Martin, a man in his 50s, told Dr Thomas about informing his father of his forthcoming civil partnership ceremony.“My father, when I told him, sort of hung his head and I said, ‘what’s wrong, dad?’ And he said, ‘well, you’re abnormal.’ So I spent about two days working through this bloody shame that I’ve been carrying for 40 years.”
Dr Thomas said that Martin recalled this extreme reaction as replicating his experience of coming out to his father as gay many years previously.
Another gay British man, Fred, told Dr Thomas about the preparations for his civil ceremony: “We invited my brother, sister-in-law and their two children and I think eventually my brother said he would come, but he would be coming on his own. I think the official reason was that my sister-in law had come to the conclusion that she wouldn’t know how to explain it to her children, which I can’t say I was particularly impressed with. And I’d been best man at his wedding.”
Dr Thomas also told the conference that the task of organising a ceremony brought couples into contact with a range of service providers, including registrars and local government officials, celebrants, hoteliers, caterers, jewellers, photographers and outfitters.
In the UK, Hamish and Drew, a couple in their mid-30s together for six years, recalled their trip to the jeweller’s to buy rings for their civil partnership ceremony.
Hamish told Dr Thomas: ‘We found the guy who was doing it quite frosty and we just weren’t sure what he was making of the fact that two men were coming in to buy rings. He wasn’t nasty, he was just very matter of fact. He was just a bit cold with us. I mean, we spent quite a bit of money. I wouldn’t go back there again though.’
Dr Thomas said:“For those who took part in the study, there was a depressing familiarity and even a predictability to the stories they told. If legal recognition raised couples’ expectations about their social status, the response of hostile relatives, indifferent officials and disrespectful service providers sometimes provided a check on these aspirations.”
However, there were also positive stories.
Eric, a 47-year-old British man, in a relationship with Tom, his civil partner for 27 years, said:“I’ve always been treated very much as an in-law, but now in my brain I do think I’m an in-law and I definitely am my nephews’ uncle now. I remember Tom’s sister introducing me as her brother-in-law for the first time and it felt good.”
Dr Thomas said this and similar stories can be seen as evidence of the successful deployment of couples’ new status in a range of contexts, from legal recognition, to respect and goodwill from officials, service providers, family and friends.
The south coast’s biggest fun-packed event for Bears returns from Friday, June 19 – Sunday, June 21, featuring a sparkling line up of events over three bear packed days.
THERE will be a special Quiz Night at the Camelford Arms, Camelford Street on Thursday, June 18 to get everyone in the mood for the main event.
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