The project “Baltic Pride 2025 – a platform for LGBTIQ human rights advocacy” aims to utilize the platform provided by the Baltic Pride 2025 festival to promote the equality of LGBTIQ persons, to empower members of the LGBTIQ community to represent their interests, to encourage solidarity and NGO networking for the purpose of LGBTIQ inclusion in cooperation with communities in the regions. The project will also provide an opportunity to increase public awareness of the importance of equality and solidarity of LGBTIQ persons, monitor LGBTIQ human rights standards and raise the competence of representatives of state institutions.

The platform provided by Baltic Pride 2025 will be used in an advocacy campaign. Awareness will be raised about the National LGBTIQ Equality Plan prepared by LGL, informal meetings of NGO representatives will be organized in Klaipėda and Šiauliai, informative lectures will be organized on Pride advocacy buses. In order to empower LGBTIQ community members, an international Pride diversity conference in the workplace, as well as Pride House community workshops and trainings will be organized, and a Pride volunteer program will be implemented.

Finally, as part of the monitoring of government institutions, an analytical review of the results of a representative study on the situation of LGBTIQ inclusion at the municipal level will be prepared and presented to competent institutions, and training will be organized for public administration specialists. Also, continuous monitoring of social networks for hate speech on the basis of sexual orientation will be carried out, and an analytical report of the monitoring will be presented to the responsible institutions. In order to increase the competence of representatives of government institutions in the field of LGBTIQ human rights standards, a report on the analysis of the implementation of the Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)5 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in Lithuania will be presented to the competent institutions.

The activities carried out during the project implementation period will benefit not only the project partners Lithuanian Gay League and “Blue Moon”, as well as the Lithuanian LGBTIQ community, but also the general public – public awareness of the principle of equality and solidarity of the LGBTIQ community will increase. Also, the active participation of LGL representatives in international networking activities will increase the awareness of representatives of international LGBTIQ organizations about the situation of the LGBTIQ community and the LGBTIQ human rights movement in Lithuania.

The project is funded by the European Commission through the Open Lithuania Foundation program “Verta!”.