May 17 was the International Day Against Homophobia. The Sofia Echos Yana Moyseeva finds out how Bulgarias gay organisation BGO Gemini is progressing in its mission to fight homophobic attitudes in EU member Bulgaria.
In his 1949 novel entitled 1984, George Orwell gave to the Party the slogan Ignorance is strength.
Orwell may not have realised that 58 years on, the message would remain as strong and as valid.
Today it seems that around the world that not just some, but many people are still driven by a slogan with the message that one is better off not knowing, for it is easier that way.
The reference to Orwell was inspired by something said recently by the Netherlands ambassador to Bulgaria. Ignorance is the enemy, Willem van Ee told a news conference held on May 15 to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, May 17.
At the news conference, the Bulgarian Gay Organisation Gemini (BGO Gemini), together with van Ee, presented their newest joint project Deafening silence: the case in my school.
Deafening silence is a joint project by BGO Gemini, the Association Centre for Independent Life, and the Initiative for Equal Opportunities. The programme is unique because it is in effect the first successful attempt by any Bulgarian NGO to bring the subject of discrimination (including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation) into schools. It is no secret that growing children have many problems, and school should indeed be the starting point where certain issues that often are part of adolescents lives, must be addressed.
Fifteen schools took part in the school project, from Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna, after 100 were invited.
Zlatina Mitova of Gemini, the co-ordinator of the programme, said that there were four components within the programme, which ends in June 2008: creating informal policies against discrimination related to ones sex, sexual orientation, people of Roma ethnicity, and children with disabilities.
The project includes a number of stages. The first took place with the programme launch on May 12, which brought together students and teachers from schools in Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna. Together with Gemini and specialists, the main topic discussed was potential problems that students and teachers could encounter in schools. Interestingly, the discussion revealed that pupils and teachers felt the time was right to start such a programme, if it was not already overdue. Pupils and teachers who took part in the discussion felt that the current methods of teaching were inappropriate to a rapidly changing society, a society living in an internet and modern media age.
Questionnaires compiled by Gemini were filled in during the session on May 12. The questionnaires were designed to assess the level of tolerance at each school. The projects organisers wanted to have an individual approach towards each school. Analysis of the questionnaires is likely to be completed in June. This will be followed by a further meeting between Gemini and representatives of participating schools to discuss the problems that emerged from the results and to work out an action plan.
Perhaps the largest component of the project, Mitova said, will be looking at specific case studies in different schools. Each school will be briefed on the kind of discrimination problems found there. Through practical tasks, children will be able to put themselves in the place of a specific minority group, whether defined by ethnicity of sexual orientation. The intention is that they learn to understand what it feels like to be part of a minority. They will offered explanations about how they should approach issues of discrimination.
We believe that the present relationship between children and teachers, that is, lecturing versus listening only, is highly inadequate for todays young generation. We believe both sides should stimulate and encourage a personal interest in discrimination issues, Mitreva said.
Based on the conclusions that students reach, Gemini will publish a small book that will advise on the best ways to deal with discrimination problems at schools. This will be distributed to all schools in Bulgaria, not just those participating in the project.
In the final stage of the project, to take place in a year, Gemini will announce a winning school, that which honours human rights the best, or in other words, the school that as a result of Geminis programme has managed to improve in some way the atmosphere of tolerance at the school.
Deafening Silence has been granted just more than 32 000 leva, 29 000 of which was provided by the Dutch embassy, which has supported Gemini for a number of years.
Asked whether this amount was enough to carry out the project, Gemini executive director Aksinia Gencheva said that it was indeed very little. But, she said, now that Bulgaria is an EU member, finding funds was becoming increasingly difficult.
A paradox, some may say. Surely, as many of us were told, the EU is a sea of opportunities, including financial?
Yes, Gencheva said, but so far we simply are not able to get the big funds of some major, well known NGOs. So we have to be flexible,she said.
Because funds are limited, Geminis employees consist mainly of volunteers. There are about 50 of them, including legal experts.
If we had to pay them all, our work just wouldnt be possible, she said.
Despite the difficulty of getting financial support, Gemini strongly hopes to be able to get some support from EU structural funds.
Currently, according to the national plan against discrimination, approved by the Cabinet, Gemini is entitled to some money, especially considering that their project Deafening Silence is implementing part of that national plan. (A part of the plan says that there must be research into the level of discrimination around Bulgarian schools, which essentially is what Geminis project is all about.) The Government is obliged to give us money for that. We dont know yet if this will happen, so we rely on a private donor such as the Dutch embassy,Gencheva said.
Dutch support for Geminis cause does not consist solely of financial aid.
Van Ee said the relationship between Gemini and the Dutch gay and lesbian organisation had been very strong for many years.
Another ongoing project that Gemini is currently implementing is FLAME (Fair Labour Attitude = Measurable Equality). It is supported by the Democracy Commission of the US embassy in Bulgaria. The programme began in June 2006 and ends this July.
Gencheva said that 30 companies and five NGOs were invited to participate. Of them, just six companies and four NGOs (also targeted as companies) agreed.
The aim of the project is, in effect, to teach employers to apply the Act Against Discrimination. It has been in effect since 2004, but still, Gencheva said, it has remained mainly on paper. The idea is to create something like a volunteer codex for equal opportunities at the work place.
As with Deafening Silence, FLAME does not centre only on people of homosexual (or heterosexual for that matter) orientation, but encompasses discrimination at the workplace on the basis of physical or mental disabilities, sex, or ethnic background.
During the programme, some company managers were acquainted with the Anti-Discrimination Act. The pilot project did not aim to suddenly change the labour environment in Bulgaria and suddenly to make workplaces tolerant, but at least it was a basis for something, Gencheva said. By the end of the project there will be an equal rights audit. At the final stage, a questionnaire will be sent to managers of participating companies to enable the compilation of an equal rights index. As with the school project, the employer that offers the best equal rights atmosphere will be announced. This, Gencheva said, will be an employer who takes notice of the differences among employees and creates a tolerant working atmosphere.
Gemini public relations co-ordinator Desislava Petrova mentioned another ongoing programme, Pink Point. This summer will be the campaigns third year.
Pink Point made the news in 2005, unfortunately not because of its benefits, but because of a controversy involving Varna mayor Kiril Yordanov. At the time he banned (among other gay events) the opening of the Pink Point in the centre of Varna, leading to charges being laid against him under the Anti-Discrimination Act.
This year, the Pink Point travelling information desk will visit Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Bourgas, Stara Zagora, Rousse and Veliko Turnovo. For two to three days, young and older people will be able to visit the information points and talk to Gemini about homosexuality and discrimination. Since the campaign began in 2005, it has considerably expanded. In 2005, three cities were visited, while this summer the campaign will expand to seven. Geminis aim is that each year Pink Point will visit more and more places, reaching the smallest of towns.
We believe that the lack of information is fundamental to discrimination; it is a reason for peoples not understanding of those of different sexual orientation, Gencheva said.
Unfortunately, in Bulgaria many of the media seem to subscribe to the principle of ignorance is strength when it comes to issues like discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
Of all the media that were invited to come to the news conference on May 15, there were just two present, one of which was The Sofia Echo. Does this mean that they simply do not take interest in the Deafening Silence initiative, or in discrimination issues, or in issues of sexual orientation? Genchevas response to that was that many of the media that get invited to Geminis events say they are busy, but would report on the basis of the media statements sent to them by Gemini.
At least its something, she said.
And despite the still not entirely satisfying degree of interest of Bulgarian media in homosexual issues, she thinks that in the past three years, Bulgarian media have changed.
Gemini does press monitoring every year on 10 daily newspapers. They count the number of reports on matters of sexual orientation. These are classified positive, neutral, and negative, which helps to identify how public opinion changes with time. In 2004, Gencheva said, there were 300 to 400 reports in the entire year. In 2005 there were more than 2000. In 2006, it turned out that every monitored newspaper reported on issues of sexual orientation more than once a month. Importantly, the number of neutral, or positive publications has also drastically increased, in Genchevas opinion.
We cant really complain, Gencheva said.
However, she did have criticism of the broadcast media who still tended to address gay issues rarely, the result of which often is to spur a scandal within society.
Elsewhere on these pages is Van Ees speech at the May 15 Gemini event. He made several references to Bulgarias EU membership.
Post-January 1, phrases like Bulgaria is now in the EU, Bulgaria as an EU member sounded encouraging. Yet a deficit remains in Bulgaria aspiring to the standards of tolerance espoused in EU member countries of longer standing.
