YEAR 9, NUMBER 2, 28 FEBRUARY 2016

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February 28, 2016 - In July 2015, GALE offered a European course on combating homophobia and transphobia in schools in Sitges, Spain. The course will be repeated from Monday 4 April until Friday 8 April. The course takes place in Sitges and is hosted by SVS (Assocation of Sitges Volunteers).
The course "Combating homophobia/transphobia in schools" focuses mostly on how to change a school culture to be more LGBT friendly and less heteronormative. This is partly about how people deal with this on a personal level, but also about how heteronormativity translates in a negative organizational culture. The course therefore also deals with how organizational change can be stimulated. The core element in the course is how schools can teach students to deal with negative emotions and opinions they may have about things that are "different" from their regular expectations, values and group norms. A more detailed program and information on how to register can be found here

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February 28, 2016 - In November last year, researcher Jean Decety published a worldwide research on the relation between religion and altruism. He concluded that children from religious households are less generous than others. This is only a next result in a series of researches that show how religious people are not only less generous but also less tolerant and more authoritarian. It raises the fundamental question about the role of religion in global peace and understanding. It would be useful if more research was done into such fears, especially because they seriously threaten world peace and the position of vulnerable minorities. This article also mentions the Dutch "Gay in the Classroom" good practice in Christian orthodox schools.

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February 24, 2016 - The Chinese censor agency (SAPPRFT) has taken the soap series “Addicted” of the Internet. The series is about a gay high school couple. The strange thing is that the series was already running for 12 of the 15 episodes. So one wonders why the Chinese censors belatedly decided to takes this series of the Internet now. Chinese followers of the series are furious. The 3 last episodes are now viewable on YouTube, but YouTube is blocked in China.”

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11 February 2016 - The Indonesian minister of research, technology and higher education, Muhammad Nasir Djamil, said on 23 January that LGBT students should be banned from university. “‘There are standard values and moral standards to be maintained. The campus is a moral guardian”, Nasir said, ignoring his own standard to uphold the universal right to education. He followed the lead of the Minister of Culture and Education, Anies Baswedan, who warned parents and teachers that LGBT were deviant and a danger to adolescents.

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January 30, 2016 - The tender for the UNESCO participation program has opened. Member States but also a limited number of NGOs in official partnership with UNESCO can submit up to two requests. For NGOs not in formal partnership with UNESCO, GALE is willing to be partner in an application (mail: info@lgbt-education.info). The deadline is 31 August 2016. Projects that are submitted to this program should have sub-regional, regional or interregional impact. The proposal should also be supported by at least the Member State where the project is to be implemented and another Member State concerned by the request.
For 2016-2017, projects presented should relate to the two global priorities of UNESCO. These are: Africa and Gender Equality, and UNESCO’s Major Programs and interdisciplinary projects in favor of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), developing countries, Post-Conflict and Post-Disaster Countries (PCPD), Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Countries In Transition (CITs).

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