“I hope: If they can do it, so can we”

Learning from each other, fighting together. That’s the motto under which Munich Kyiv Queer has been inviting queer people from Ukraine to the ‘Volunteers Workhop’ in Munich for years now. The focus: volunteering. The goal: to convey what the community can achieve thanks to the commitment of its members! In the ‘Volunteers Blog’, our guests write about what motivates them. Oleksandra is the first to do so.

The five of us are mesmerised by the board with the schedule of our volunteer programme in Munich. Our brains are a bit racing, and it seems impossible to structure and describe all the impressions of today for a short blog post.

And then Uwe (below), our workshop leader, suggests a brainstorming method: describe this first day in just one word. There is a pause. Lena (3rd from the left) is the first to respond. Her word is HISTORY.

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Thanks to a tour through the LGBTIQ* past by the slightly shy Linda (2nd from the right), we were able to see the entire journey of the German community. The projects, successes and failures are all an integral part of LGBTIQ* history.

I was particularly impressed by the Forum Queeres Archiv. A lot of effort, a lot of work – and all this so that the fates of the movement’s participants are not lost in history. But not only people have stories, also places. For example, the gay-queer centre Sub. Forty years of existence – my goodness, you don’t live that long! )) And here they not only live, but also develop, expand and have no shortage of volunteers. To be honest, we are jealous – of course, in a good way.

Natalia (l.) speaks next. PARALLELS, she says. We noticed many analogies as Linda and Uwe told us about the history of the LGBTIQ* movement. To reach today’s level of freedom and equality, they endured much of what we are experiencing right now. Starting from the resistance from conservatives (“Satanists, child molestation, blah, blah, blah…”) and ending with clumsy attempts to make a pro-LGBTIQ* film as part of a government’s educational initiative, after which queer people themselves spat at the number of stereotypes.

They are strong and we are learning, one day it will be the other way around

But everything is changing. Sooner or later. Things are different in Germany now. Now they are stronger, more confident and regularly share their experience with other members of the community abroad. And not only the experience of fighting in the legislative field, but also in book publishing, periodicals, organising safe leisure activities etc. And this is exactly the word that Uliana (3rd from the right) chooses: DIVERSITY.

  • Katia (above in the middle) thinks and thinks, thinks and thinks…
  • “I don’t know!” she says with despair in her voice.
  • “Well, what did you like the most today?”
  • “Mila!”, Katia replies without thinking.

Of course! MILA. More precisely, Mila and Anna are our wonderful translators. They added even more charm and good mood to the already interesting lectures and discussions. Thanks to them, we received all the information in an exhaustive manner and were charged with the mood of the workshop.

Volunteers Uliana, Katja, Oleksandra mit Uwe in der Sub-Bibliothek.

I would like to add that for me personally, history has always been one of the most boring subjects at school. When I was a schoolgirl, I was not interested in the past at all. It’s good that things are different now. To say that the history of the Munich movement interested me would be an understatement. And I agree with Natalia – a lot of it is happening in contemporary Ukrainian society.

The word that can describe my impressions of the first day of the workshop is HOPE. Hope that if they can do it, we can do it. We have a good example for this. The main thing is to keep going.

On Friday, Oleksandra (2nd from right), Katja (2nd from left) and Uliana (left) will report on their week in Munich at the LeZ.

Living Library: LGBTIQ* activists from Ukraine tell us about their lives, their experiences in Munich and their plans for the future
When Friday, 8 November 2024, 7 p.m.
Where Lesbian-Queer Centre LeZ, Müllerstraße 26
Organisers Gay Alliance Ukraine, LeZ, Munich Pride, Munich Kyiv Queer, Munich Department of Arts and Culture

This is how you can donate

INDIVIDUAL HELP Munich Kyiv Queer has its own fundraising campaign via https://www.paypal.me/ConradBreyer to support queer people in Ukraine who are in need or on the run. Why? Because not all LGBTIQ* are organised in the local LGBTIQ*-groups. This help is direct, fast and free of charge if you choose the option “For friends and family” on PayPal. If you don’t have PayPal, you can alternatively send money to the private account of Conrad Breyer, speaker of Munich Kyiv Queer, IBAN: DE427015000021121454.

All requests from the community are meticulously checked in cooperation with our partner organisations in Ukraine. If they can help themselves, they take over. If the demands for help exceed their (financial and/or material) possibilities, we will step in.

HELP FOR LGBTIQ* ORGANISATIONS To support LGBTIQ* in Ukraine we have helped set up the Alliance Queer Emergency Aid Ukraine, in which around 40 German LGBTIQ* Human Rights organisations are involved. All these groups have access to very different Human Rights organisations in Ukraine and use funds for urgently needed care or evacuation of queer people. Every donation helps and is used 100 percent to benefit queer people in Ukraine. Donate here

VULNERABLE GROUP And here you can find out why queer people in war need our support.

Questions? www.MunichKyivQueer.org/help

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