Start of the next phase of the campaign to counter homophobia

This week started the new phase of the information campaign implemented by UPO Gay Alliance Ukraine within the project “Promotion of basic human rights and freedoms and countering homophobia through increasing public awareness”. Let us recall that the project is being carried out jointly with the Embassy of the Netherlands in Ukraine.  In order to draw public attention to the homophobia issue a series of information posters was created and placed on the advertising areas in the cities of four Ukrainian regions. Action simultaneously takes place in Odesa, Lviv, Zhytomyr and Kryvyi Rih. The focus of the campaign is the stigma and discrimination of LGBT; however it is presented not from a position of an abstract “humanistic philosophical idea” but rather shown in most real life forms.   The plot of posters based on the findings of public opinion survey on attitudes towards LGBT people in Ukraine conducted last autumn by UPO Gay Alliance Ukraine jointly with the Centre of Social Expertise of the Institute of Sociology of NAS of Ukraine. (More details on this survey here. Read and download its full text in Russian in our Library). Besides, posters encourage Ukrainians to develop deeper understanding of the problem by reading the real life stories of people from LGBT community published on the campaign website www.tolerance.in.ua/life.   The stories are quit diverse as life itself: there are some sad stories along with the romantic ones. Getting to know the life of the other person is as if we try it on ourselves – and it is much easier to take their otherness afterwards. Because, despite all the differences, we still have a lot in common. We expect that the information campaign will help to decrease general level of homophobia in the Ukrainian society by breaking personal fears and stereotypes.   [Gay Alliance Ukraine] Back to overview