‘Safe platform’ founded for southern LGBTQIA

FOUNDER of the South Trinidad LGBTQIA Jewan Bissoondial says there is need to establish a platform that will represent the views of the LGBTQIA community in south Trinidad.

It will also serve to plan and provide various services for members.

“In keeping with the current nationwide celebration of Pride 2019,” he said, “the south community has embarked on creating this safe platform in south TT so as to engage in social and civic activism that advances the cause of protecting the rights and freedoms of members of this community.

“We will be hosting a series on public discussions on the issues of equity and equal access to opportunities for members of our community.”

The group aims to work collaboratively with other existing groups, he said, which share similar objectives of changing the discriminatory practices of some in this country.

The “platform” will take the form of a non-profit organisation and will host seminars to advocate for mutual respect, tolerance and justified pride in the harmony of the country’s diversity, its aim being for members to continue to live together in peace.

Members of the organisation, he said, hope to change the stigma people experience on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity or being transgender. “We would like our national community to become one that is more inclusive, fair and just, where each person gets a fair chance to exists and to serve in any job he or she chooses,” Bissoondial said.

In this regard, he said the group had already embarked on initiatives by hosting workshops to educate people so as to eradicate stigmatisation and discrimination against those who identify as LGBTQIA.

“We stand hand in hand with the chairman of Pride TT, Rudy Hanamji, and others who are working to promote the protection of the rights and freedoms of LGBTQIA persons from unjust discrimination meted out to many of us,” he said.

The LGBTQIA community deserves better, he said, urging others to come forward and join with the organisation. Its creed is “We Stand United as One Family... Moving Forward Together.” South Trinidad LGBTQIA was incorporated as a non-profit organisation on May 3.