Standing together to fight bullying!
From the 2nd to the 8th of March, school student activists and LGBTQ-activists from all Europe came together for a Study Session titled “Standing together: action and advocacy against bullying”, organised jointly by OBESSU and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Youth and Student Organisation (IGLYO) in the European Youth Center in Budapest. This event was a rare opportunity for these activists to explore ways of cooperation and learn about how homophobic and transphobic bullying can be tackled on different levels in society.
To have a successful week it was important that everyone had a common ground and a shared understanding of the different key concepts; such as gender, sexuality and bullying. That is why the first day focused on opening up these words. It was emphasised that sex, gender and sexuality are concepts that are linked, but do not always go hand in hand and that it is impossible to divide people according to the strict, simplified categories. After this, the participants also looked at existing definitions of bullying and discussed whether all bullying is the same or if transphobic and homophobic bullying looks different.
Regional realities – do they exist?
The next step was to discover the regional realities of the participants. Even though the participants shared the vision, it turned out the opportunities they have in their home countries vary a lot. In some regions the legislation supports sexual minorities, while in others people’s lives are heavily restricted and their rights violated. The main outcome of the discussion that followed was that it is hard to divide Europe into regions, but there are huge differences in especially how the law treats its citizens between different countries. Also the way LGBTQ-organisations function and get support is very different in different parts of Europe. The recognition of trans-people and the discussion on gender binary is still lacking everywhere in Europe.
Different actors
Since tackling bullying is not possible with involvement of more actors than just solely activists, we devoted a day to analysing different levels on which actors can act and we analysed how they can tackle bullying and what their competences are. It became obvious that different actors on local, regional, national and international level influence different things and it is important to learn to work successfully with the different actors.
In order to be more specific and to present some concrete actions and good practices, we were honoured to have Peter Dankmeijer from the Global alliance for LGBT Education and Shaun Dellenty from Inclusion for all with us as guest speakers. They both shared the field of their work, their successful projects and actions and the way in which they tackle bullying on different levels involving different actors. Peter presented the work done by the GALE Network, and explained how he tries to change not only his own school but also to make a bigger change by for example training school staff and others with an interest in the topic. Shaun in his turn spoke about why and how he decided to make an elementary school in England inclusive for every child.
Three expert sessions were given by participants themselves, as the background and experience of the participants varied a lot. The peer-to-peer sessions were very important for the overall learning process, one focusing on basic information about trans issues, one on norm criticism and one on the ideal school and how it can be achieved.
Updating guidelines and planning actions!
One of the main objectives of the study session was to rework the Guidelines for inclusive education created in 2007 in cooperation between OBESSU and IGLYO. The guidelines were revised together with all the participants in order to be more up to date and more relevant to use for the two organisations.
The next step was to look deeper into the process of advocating, and more precisely the way school student activism and LGBTQ activism can complement each other in work towards more inclusive schools and when tackling bullying. Action plans were then created by each of the participants individually with steps to be taken when going home. Their plans were oriented on actual actions which will tackle bullying in education and in schools, on how to add new aspects to the work of the home organisation and how to start or improve already existing work between school student activists and LGBTQ activists.
