Our volunteer Lorette was in Tallinn for IGLYO Activists Academy 2023, organized by IGLYO, and hosted by ECOM. The Academy’s goal is to empower young LGBTIQ+ activists and to build their capacity as change-makers; so that they can go bak to their country and organisation with new skills and knowledge. It is also an opportunity to network with other activists, to get to know their organisation, and to learn more about the host of the Academy, ECOM, the Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity.
Lorette took part in workshops on workshop design, public speaking, communication, social media as advocacy tool, and campaigning. They learnt about the principles of non-formal education and how to use them to develop and implements workshops, and within a team challenge, created and presented a workshop plan for an educational session on LGBTIQ+ topics for young people. For the second team challenge, Lorette and their team developed and presented a campaign plan, with the campaign’s goal being to gather signatures to show support for an improvement on a proposed reform on Sweden’s legal gender recognition procedure for trans people. These team challenges were the opportunity to put into practice the new public speaking skills Lorette had just acquired, as well as the new knowledge on communications and campaigning.
All of the participants also went on a LGBTIQ+ guided tour of Tallinn, to learn more about the life of queer people Estonia, as well as the history of Tallinn and Baltic Prides since the early 2000s.
Photos by: Jana
