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Meeting secretariat WGIC 13 October 2006

State of Affairs

  • Wim has tried to find contact at UNESCO through a closeted gay diplomat of Belgium at the UN, through Peter Laughorn (Bernard van Leer Foundation) and through UNESCO Netherlands (which does fundraising).
  • On October 11, Peter has done a presentation on Dutch good practices at the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw of the OSCE, the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe. The staff office of the OSCE (HDIR) is trying to put LGBT issues on the agenda, but this is a careful operation because member organizations like the Vatican (which is a country, next to being a church) a fiercely opposed to this. ILGA Europe and the governments of Sweden and the Netherlands organized 3 side events on LGBT issues and Peter was asked to do a presentation on education on behalf of the Dutch government. The presentation included information on GALE and was well received. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered to pay expenses of presentation materials, which Peter used to print English and Russian leaflets of GALE. Between 50-100 leaflets were distributed.

Start of the SWOT analysis

There is a Special Rapporteur of the UN on Education, Ms. Katarina Tomasevski (Croatia). She has written a series of reports since 1998 (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/7/b/medu.htm) which stresses worldwide access to (primary) education for all, including vulnerable groups like girls and discriminated local cultural groups. This may offer opportunities.
UNAIDS: The board said UNAIDS may be important for partnering, acces to UNESCO and funding. Wim has contact with people of local offices in India and Egypt. We don’t know much about opportunities here.
Human Rights Watch: Peter got has indirect contacts (through Scott Long of Human Rights Watch – LGBT Division/Canada) with the Child Rights Division of HRW in New York, were Michael Bochenek (bochenm@hrw.org) works, who is probably interested in LGBT issues and who may have access to UNESCO and UNICEF as well.

Public Relations

We want to start a newsletter for international organizations and donors. It is best to contact them first and ask them if they want to be on the list.

Action List

  • Peter sends report special rapporteur education
  • Peter asks Toni contacts ASICAL
  • Peter checks UNAIDS for funding and partnering relationships
  • Peter will check the child/adolescent department of UNICEF
  • Wim tries to contact the permanent representative of the Netherlands at UNESCO
  • Wim order the new book of Cees Waaldijk
  • Peter makes draft list of contacts for the PR newsletter
  • Peter mails contacts childs rights dept. of UNICEF to Wim
  • Peter asks Robert Simon (Paris) his contacts

Aide Memoire

  • Wim and Peter meet again on 31 October
  • Theme of discussion is then: gathered information, next steps, enhancing collaboration and communication within the Working Group (with Toni and Violeta)