On Thursday, 22 September 2022 between 11.00 – 12.30 CEST, ILGA-Europe will organise an online event to discuss different approaches of LGBTI organisations in engaging with volunteers. The webinar will reflect on why engaging volunteers is important and often even necessary as part of a strategic community organising work.

We will be joined by four speakers who have experience in engaging with volunteers in their organisations:

• Piotr Sadowski (he/him), Secretary General, Volonteurope
• Alex Zorilă (she/they), Volunteer Coordinator, Community Outreach Officer and Bucharest Pride 2022 Coordinator, Asociația Accept (Romania)
• Cem Öztürk (they/them), Projects and Fundraising Coordinator, SPoD  (Turkey)
• Ellen Sleeuwaert (she/they), Volunteer at Çavaria and L-week (Belgium), Co-chair of the Board of Trustees of Çavaria

Prior to the beginning of the webinar, attendees will be asked to share their experiences of volunteering or engaging with volunteers using an online interaction tool. The webinar will be recorded and the key takeaways will be reported on a new card on the ILGA-Europe Resource Sharing Hub.

Click here to register for the event. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

About the Speakers

Piotr Sadowski (he/him), Secretary General, Volonteurope

Piotr Sadowski has been Secretary General of Volonteurope (an international civil society network advocating for social action and active citizenship as routes to achieving more social justice) since 2008; he has also been President of Social Platform since April 2019Piotr represents Volonteurope and wider European Civil Society interests in the EESC Liaison Group and, within the pillars of the Council of Europe, he is an elected member of the INGO Conference Standing Committee, with a particular remit on safeguarding social rights throughout Europe

Alex Zorilă (she/they), Volunteer Coordinator, Community Outreach Officer and Bucharest Pride 2022 Coordinator, Asociația Accept (Romania)

Alex Zorilă has been at Accept since 2015, which she first joined as a volunteer. Currently, she is a volunteer coordinator and works directly with young queer people that come to Accept for support. For Bucharest Pride 2022 she was the main coordinator, volunteer coordinator and event organizer.

Cem Öztürk (they/them), Projects and Fundraising Coordinator, SPoD  (Turkey)

Cem Öztürk is a graduate of the University of Nottingham (UK) and has been involved in LGBTI activism since 2012. Having had participated in numerous trainings on human rights and related fields, Cem also volunteered for various LGBTI+ organisations. Since 2020, they have been working professionally at SPoD coordinating the work of the volunteers and also sharing their expertise on  CSO management, project management,  fundraising and other areas of work.

Ellen Sleeuwaert (she/they), Volunteer at Çavaria and L-week (Belgium), Co-chair of the Board of Trustees of Çavaria

Ellen Sleeuwaert has been volunteering within the Rainbow Community since 2010. During that time she co-founded a grassroots initiative for women, was chairperson of a regional Rainbowhouse and co-founded the LGBT network within the biggest Belgian trade union. At the moment she is mainly occupied with co-chairing at the Board of trustees of Çavaria and organising L-week – a festival for lesbian, bi, trans, queer and non-binary people in Antwerp.

We invite LGBTI organisations, groups and activists involved in community organising to participate in our webinar on ‘Community organising for older LGBTI persons’ on Friday, October 1 at 11 AM (CEST).

THIS WEBINAR HAS ALREADY TAKEN PLACE

Reaching out to and supporting older LGBTI persons, while taking into consideration intersecting identities such as sexual orientations, gender and age is crucial for our movement. At this webinar you will have the opportunity to hear from a number of prominent LGBTI activists who have extensive experience in community organising with and for older LGBTI persons.

With growing number of people above the age of 60 in Europe, according to Eurostat there will be almost half a million centenarians in the EU by 2050. In Central Asian countries, UN DESA forecasts an increase of the average life expectancy from 60 to 70 in the next 30 years. As we continue raising awareness about diversity and intersectionality within LGBTI communities, which are increasingly becoming more and more visible across Europe and Central Asia, we also encourage recognition and inclusion of older LGBTI persons’ realities and experiences in LGBTI community organising. 

This session in the ILGA-Europe series of community organising webinars marks the International Day of Older Persons 2021, and will explore how LGBTI organisations and activists in our region integrate services and activities to include older LGBTI persons and better respond to their needs as part of their community organising efforts. The event will have simultaneous English<>Russian translation.

Joining us will be:

• Alexei Marcicov (he/him), Leader of the Support Group for older gay men at GenderDoc Moldova, Co-founder of GenderDoc Moldova
• Evien Tjabbes (she/her), Board Member of the European Central Asian Lesbian Community (EL*C), Formerly coordinator at ILIS (International Lesbian Information Service)
• Carolina Brauckmann (she/her), Coordinator for the work with older LGBTI persons at the LGBT Counseling Centre Rubicon, Cologne, Germany, Board member of the Lesben und Altern Umbrella Organization in Germany
• Marc Charles Wynn-Derksen (he/him) – Ambassador (volunteer) with Roze 50+, the Netherlands 

Learn more:

Would you like to watch the recordings of our previous webinars on community organising?  Please follow this link or contact ILGA-Europe Programmes Officer Nurbek Omurov: nurbek@ilga-europe.org

To understand what LGBTI community organising is, you may register and learn more on our Online Learning Hub at: https://hub.ilga-europe.org

To know more about our policy position on inclusion of older LGBTI persons, you may read ILGA-Europe submission to the European Commission’s consultation on the Green Paper on Ageing.