Many countries have surpassed the peak of the COVID-19 crisis and are beginning to plan phased-out endings of their lockdowns. But we’re not out of the woods yet, and if numbers of coronavirus cases start rising again, lockdown measures are most likely to be extended or reinstated, as was seen in Singapore. In a webinar presented by ILGA-Europe earlier this month, participants shared the activities and strategies their organisations have used to stay connected while confined to their houses.

As we gear up to bring our annual fundraising event online, ILGA-Europe’s Partnerships Manager, Anna Shepherd gives her top tips for organising online events and bringing supporters on board.

While some countries begin to plan what the end of social confinement and lockdowns will look like, the struggle to adapt to new ways of working and tackle unforseen challenges, continues for everyone. There are so many resources out there to help it’s hard to know where to begin, so as part of ILGA-Europe’s three-part plan to support the LGBTI movement through the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve hand-picked ten of the very best.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has just made a landmark decision, saying that a lawyer who declared that he would never hire a “homosexual” person in his law firm was discriminating under an EU employment directive. Meet activist Emiliano Ganzarolli, from the powerhouse group of LGBT lawyers who took the case.

As 300 Pride events, and counting, have been called off across Europe, President of the European Pride Organisers Association, Kristine Garina talks about what this will mean for the LGBTI community, and how we can come together to rise to this critical challenge.

After our blog on crisis communication, ILGA-Europe hosted a Q&A call for LGBTI groups to share experiences and advice on communicating clearly during the COVID-19 crisis. Here is a summary and 60-second video of five lessons we

The COVID-19 crisis is having far-reaching effects on now our organisations are working. ILGA-Europe are adapting and finding new ways to continue our work using online platforms and resources. Our Finance and Admin team have brought together a really great resource for online financial management througout this time of lockdown, and here they share their top tips.

The COVID-19crisis is generating complex challenges for the day-to-day work of LGBTI activist organisations, while it has become clear the global reaction to the virus is hitting marginalised communities disproportionally hard. ILGA-Europe’s three part plan seeks to help LGBTI organisations navigate and adapt to a constantly changing landscape, and work towards the time when the immediate crisis has passed.

The COVID-19 crisis situation is changing every day, and as an LGBTI organisation you are going to want to keep your audience updated about what specifically matters to them. ILGA-Europe’s strategic communications consultant, Sho Konno, gives his key advice for communicating at this time.

While the opponents of LGBTI equality might also be overwhelmed with COVID-19 and focus their attention less on LGBTI groups right now, the digital footprints we leave today will still be around for a long time to come, which could make us more vulnerable after the crisis is over. So, now that most of our activities have moved online, how do we stay safe and secure? Here are tools and tips from the ILGA-Europe Programmes & Policy team.

In every activist organisation, previously solid plans are up in the air as we adapt to a new and never before experienced working landscape. With more questions than answers on the table, our Programmes Director, Bjorn Van Roozendaal

Amid the global outbreak of COVID-19, the fight for the human rights of LGBTI people doesn’t take a break, but how can activists and organisations connect and do their best work from kitchen tables? ILGA-Europe member organisation, All Out, has some answers.

“Sometimes it is necessary to speak clearly from a very personal or intimate point of view,” says intersex activist Ins A Kromminga, co-founder of OII Europe and illustrator of ‘#MyIntersexStory: Personal accounts by intersex people living in Europe’. The 15 beautifully illustrated, but often harrowing stories in this groundbreaking publication speak “a clear and frank language of things that are often hard to speak about”.

Check out these top tips from our management team as they tell their personal stories of suddenly finding themselves working from home.

The surprising success of a Croatian picture book for children last year showed that there may be more allies of rainbow families in the country than headlines about burnt effigies and unsuccessful foster care applications might suggest. In the latest Voices of ILGA-Europe video, we meet an activist and father on the frontlines for same-sex family rights in his native country.

Adopted from Sri Lanka to a family in the Netherlands when she was just ten days old, Cherine Mathot survived childhood cancer which left her with a disability, and she came out as bisexual at the age of 15. In advance of International Women’s Day this coming Sunday (March 8), Cherine tells us how her experiences have informed her work for the LGBTI organisation COC Nederlands.

While joining the EU could be key to helping make gender recognition and same-sex marriage a reality in Western Balkan countries, the blocking of Albania and North Macedonia’s next steps towards membership is having the opposite effect.

ILGA-Europe’s Annual Review identifies a sharp rise in anti-LGBTI hate-speech across the European region, often carried out by public figures. To mark European Day for Victims of Crime (February 22), we report on the ways in which such rhetoric is in turn violently affecting the lives LGBTI people.

While this week Switzerland made hate speech illegal against people based on their sexual orientation, in 2019 one of the trends observed in ILGA-Europe’s Annual Review is a sharp rise in on-and-offline anti-LGBTI hate speech, often from political leaders, across Europe. As our Executive Director, Evelyne Paradis, recently shared at the Google Online Safety Summit, “LGBTI communities need to know that perpetrators of violent speech will be held responsible”.

From the high-powered offices of government, to the vanguard of the Czech Republic’s LGBTI movement, Czeslaw Walek tells his story of activism in action.

February 6 is Sámi National Day, when indigenous communities from the Sápmi region in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia commemorate the first Sámi congress, which was held in 1917. LGBTI Sámi activist, Anne Olli tells us what it means to be at the intersection of two minorities –and what you can do to be a Sámi ally!