Rainbow Refugee Society, the Centre for Newcomers, and From Borders To Belonging invite you to "Solidarity and Strength: Forging pathways to communities where LGBTQI refugees can thrive."
Our gathering is a joint effort hosted by the Centre for Newcomers in Calgary, Rainbow Refugee from Vancouver, and steering partners of From Borders to Belonging. Together we will share knowledge based on our Community of Practice Knowledge Mobilization and National Guideline Development projects.
Our Aim
We envision two dynamic days filled with diverse voices, opportunities for connection, knowledge sharing, and mutual support. Our aim is to foster better pathways to safety and build responsive communities of belonging for all LGBTQI+ refugee newcomers arriving and settling in Canada.
Who will benefit
Come, share your knowledge and skills while learning from others. We invite people with lived expertise as LGBTQI+ refugees, Indigenous knowledge holders, practitioners in the settlement field, social and health services and law along with advocates, community builders, artists, scholars, researchers, and policy makers to join us.
Objectives
You will gain knowledge and skills that enhance practice and promote LGBTQI+ newcomer wellbeing across sectors and in communities across Canada. Come learn about key practices in working with 2SLGBTQI+ refugees and newcomers. You will see the connections among your own learning, your care or service practice, advocacy, and the possibilities for social justice transformation in agencies and communities. Collectively, our conversations will prepare us to promote the rights and wellbeing of LGBTQI+ refugee newcomers from coast to coast to coast.
Sessions will explore these themes:
- Creating Safer Accessible Pathways for LGBTQI Forced Migrants
- Safer & Welcoming Communities: promoting responsive support services
- Decolonizing, queering, and transing migration, refugee resettlement, and settlement
- Standing together in polarizing times
- Living Well Together
Together we will explore these questions:
- Can we imagine together, the conditions that would enable LGBTQI refugees to migrate safely and thrive in communities?
- How do we better support people who have been forcibly displaced by persecution related to sexual orientation gender identity expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) – Throughout migration? – During application and refugee determination processes? – In communities of arrival?
- What seems to work, or not work, in supporting LGBTQI+ refugees to become settled and thrive in Canada?
- How do we forge communities that are strong in the face of on-going and intensifying hate and systems of oppression that impact SOGIESC migration?
- What does living well together mean to you as we invite refugees and immigrants into communities in Canada? How can we, as a diverse society, live well together and respect the dignity and worth of all SOGIESC diverse people?
Location on Indigenous Land
This gathering will take place on the unceded territories including, the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations
We extend our respect and deep gratitude to these nations, and Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island as the rightful holders and stewards of land. One of the aims of our gathering is to reflect and learn about the responsibilities we have to transform practices in refugee settlement to bring about right relations, truth, reconciliation and decolonization.
