“Heading towards Visibility and Equality”, 2015 09 – 2017 06

erasmus_logoAn overall objective of this European voluntary service (EVS) project is to combine our knowledge and experience with the fresh ideas of volunteers and to create initiatives in order to develop new tools for encouraging young people to be active and informed citizens of the EU. This project foresees to have two EVS volunteers who, in addition to regular office activities would be responsible for specific tasks. One volunteer in addition to regular office activities would be responsible for the community mobilizing (developing LGBT center activities) and assisting on the communication work of the LGL staff. Second volunteer would be working on LGBT visibility in Lithuania through art. He/she would be responsible for creating various LGBT related artistic material, having art related activities in LGBT center for community, designing merchandise and campaigns style for the organization, creating publications for printings, books, reports, posters and panels.

Participants of this project – two young people from Italy and Slovakia, motivated and passionate about LGBT persons rights are willing to spend 10 months in Lithuania (starting April 2016), where at the LGL office they will carry out their voluntary service.

Meet our volunteers:

Marina

Name: Marina

Country: Italy

E-Mail: marina@gay.lt

About the volunteer: With a bachelor degree in Political Sciences and a master in International Economics and Politics, the desire to work on topics such as the protection of human rights comes out pretty natural to me, so when I read about the LGBT EVS opportunity I simply said: why not?! Of course, there are also other reasons that let me decide to apply for this specific EVS project. First of all, I was attracted by the opportunity to gain experience in the advocacy sector. In fact, even if thanks to my academic results, I won different scholarships abroad and I worked for different International Institutions and NGOs (during the Erasmus Placement in Brussels for example, I worked for Caritas Europa; with the MAE-CRUI in Chicago (USA) for the Italian Consulate; and by means of Leonardo Da Vinci project for the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Valencia), none of them gave me the specific chance to experience what working in the advocacy unit means, and I was very curious about. Second, the topic is very specific and relatively new, there still is a lot of work to do on it and I found this stimulating. Moreover, being Italian, I saw it as a challenge. As everybody knows, Italy has a deeply-rooted catholic culture, and even if it is a long time that GLBT rights are at the centre of national and international public debate, the political class still find hard to treat these themes with the necessary respect. Third, I have always been active from a social point of view (I started practicing volunteering when I was 16 years old) and I hate discrimination, in any form and/or level. I have a natural and very strong sense of justice and for this reason I found the project in line with my personality. Finally, I missed living abroad. So now, I am here, with all my fears and worries, but ready to learn and put myself to the test.

© Augustas Didžgalvis

© Augustas Didžgalvis

Name: Veronika

Country: Slovakia

E-Mail: veronika@gay.lt

About the volunteer: LGBT topics have always seemed to be important to me. I am more interested in it since I was studying at the department of sociology at Brno (Czech Republic), where was the Pride held the first year of my studies and I have realized that homophoby is a real problem. Then one of my friends came out as a trans and that was the kick to start to be more interested in transgender issues. As I was studying gender studies at that time, I have written all of my essays on that topic and my bachelor thesis was named „Transgender – towards a human rights perspective“ where I introduced a shift in approaching transgenderism with using of theories of gender. I have been a trainee in TransFúzia – organization for empowerment of transgender people in Slovakia. I have got engaged also with a women´s right organization in Brno which deals mainly with sexist advertisement and that is the other topic of my work as I am interested in feminist issues and fighting sexism, too. Last year I experienced a few non-formal education trainings and I have found out that it is really important to move out from a comfort zone to learn new things and to develop yourself, so I have decided finally to go abroad for my first time. I have discovered EVS and it was fortunate that there was a call from LGL in that time. So here I am!

Links to project results:

ARTICLES:

EVENTS:

FACEBOOK EVENTS:

VIDEOS PROMOTING EVS PROGRAM:

ADDITIONAL: