More information
Description
For many years, Poland has been one of the least LGBTQ-friendly countries. Many studies show that homophobia, biphobia & transphobia are still quite common here. The situation is changing somewhat in some workplaces. The organisational culture that selected organisations are introducing shows that inclusivity and being open to different minority groups simply pays off. Creating LGBT-friendly places can be an opportunity for social change – building awareness that these people are an important part of society. As part of the project, we will create a database and a map of LGBT-friendly places throughout Poland. We will hold at least 50 events in county towns throughout the country, during which we will encourage small and larger businesses to declare openness to non-heteronormative people. For their business it will be an additional way of promotion and increase of income, and for LGBT people – a clue on where they can go and whose services they can use to feel safe and not have to be afraid of refusal of services. We will develop a mobile application that will allow anyone interested to find places that not only provide services in different areas and fields but are also open to LGBT customers and staff. In addition, we will prepare educational videos that will allow us to extend the project’s impact for months and years after its end. On the project website anyone interested will be able to submit new, emerging businesses. We will promote the idea of openness in business in press publications, purchased advertisements and promotional materials.
Summary of project results
The project was a response to the decreasing legal protection of LGBT people in accessing goods and services and the growing interest of companies in creating open workplaces free from discrimination against LGBT people.
As part of the project, we created a selected database, as well as a special website and application that allows you to search for LGBT-friendly places throughout Poland. We conducted a series of training sessions for owners of small and medium-sized companies in 50 district cities on the financial benefits of creating an open workplace. The training sessions were held in cities that were not cities with district rights. As part of the project, we also undertook promotional activities in social media, online portals and the printed press.
As part of the project, we provided a map, search engine and application that makes it easier for LGBT+ consumers to navigate around Poland.
Thousands of people have already used the portal. There have also been many voices in the space of direct meetings and online communication praising the project as an important undertaking for the LGBT+ community in Poland.
One of the biggest difficulties was the implementation of training meetings in county towns. Openness to the topic of inclusiveness is very often limited there. Prejudices regarding any topics related to LGBT+ people discouraged people who could potentially benefit from the knowledge provided during the training. Our initial activities promoting the events - emails and Facebook events - were therefore reinforced by further methods of reaching out. Hiring a volunteer to call people who were potentially interested and inviting them to meetings, as well as promoting the events on Facebook significantly increased the reach of the information provided.
We did not eliminate all the difficulties related to absenteeism from meetings. However, the very issue of holding them, including promotion that reached a large part of the population of the towns where the trainings were held, increased awareness of the topic of the presence of LGBT+ consumers among people from these places. Under almost every post on Facebook about the meeting in a given city, residents of that city commented on and commented on the event. The comments very often had a hostile tone, but if they were not vulgar, we entered into a discussion with such people. In these discussions, it often turned out that people were convinced of some ideas that they might have previously misunderstood. This is one of the most interesting side effects of our project and it will be an important element that will allow us to organize further activities supporting allied businesses in the district cities of Poland in the future.