Crossing Borders: Working on Self Confidence, Communitybuilidng and Social Cohesion with LGBTQ+ Youth across Europe

Objective 1: Empowering people in their identity (micro). The participants in Poland, Hungary and Belgium will feel stronger in their own identity. They will empower themselves and eachother. To a...

Objective 1: Empowering people in their identity (micro). The participants in Poland, Hungary and Belgium will feel stronger in their own identity. They will empower themselves and eachother. To achieve this, we will organise (digital) events with a focus on confidence and resilience. With peer-teaching and the sharing of good practices, we will involve the key volunteers to prepare these events. Objective 2: Communitybuilding (meso). The participants will learn about and invest in community-building, not only locally but internationally. Participants will learn about the different contexts that shape LGBTQ+ activism. The social, geographical and historical context of the three different countries influence the practices, needs and goals of (local) activists. These will be shared with the participants through a panel, workshop or group discussion. Objective 3: Inspiring and Promoting Social Cohesion (macro). The participants will combine the knowledge accumulated through the previous objectives to inspire forms of activism that go beyond personal identity, local activism and local context. Participants will brainstorm and discuss possible plans for feature collaborations between Poland, Hungary, Belgium and other countries.

A lot of the activities we planned in the submission form were implemented during the project. We started out with the inspiration days in Brussels. In Brussels, the main goal was to get to know each other, each organisation and each individual participating in the project. We learned about each others political situation concerning LGBTQ+, what activism looks like for all of us and together we planned the upcoming activities. We proceeded with online meetings about serveral topics: history of activism and queer pioneers, activism nowadays, how to motivate and keep motivating volunteers in activist organisations, wellbeing and selfcare and activist burn-out and lastly the new political situation in Poland and Hungary. All these meetings were organised online. We ended the project in Antwerp. At the Wel Jongerencongress we came together again to organise three final activities: lecture on living as an LGBTQ+ person in Poland, Hungary and Belgium, workshop activism across borders, getting together as people in Europe. In these last activities, we used everything we learned from each other and shared it with a bigger group of youngsters.

The project gave us several opportunities, such as getting to know activists and activism from other countries within Europe, broadening our network of LGBTQ+ allies, sharing good practices when it comes to organising LGBTQ+ activities and practicing activism ... The concrete output was the Erasmus+ day at the congress in Antwerp where we shared everything we learned in three activities fully prepared and executed by participants of the project. The sessions were very popular and a lot of expertise was shared as a result of many productive learningsessions during this project. Next to that concrete outcome, we have some other important results. Because of the project, we were able to connect with each other on many levels. In a professional way, we learned from each other, gathered new good practices and gained allies across Europe. With that comes a feeling of strength and community. If something were to occur in Europe, we know who to contact and who to stand with in times of need and loneliness. On a personal level, the participants and myself also gained a lot of expertise, insights and new connections. All of these outcomes are valuable, for the organisations, for the participating people and the European LGBTQ+ community.