About Pride from other organisations

 

Spark Joy • Eradicate Shame • Empower Change MAY 2025 12684 Total Books Donated to UK Primary Schools Join the Mission Here Hey Jean-Francois   We’re diving into Pride season with rainbows, resources, and record-breaking book donations! From adorable school visits (pets included 🐾) to Parliament-ready advocacy, May has been packed with positivity, progress, and purpose. 💪✨   Here’s everything we’ve been up to - and how you can get involved in spreading inclusive joy even further... ⭐️ SPARKING JOY ⭐️ 🌈 PRIDE SEASON IS HERE 🎉 The Pop’n’Olly Pride Tour officially kicked off in Trafford - and it was adorable!   We danced, made flags, read stories and shared so much queer joy with local families.   More Pride appearances coming soon - check out where else I will be popping up this summer:   ️⭐️ 14 June - Cambridge Pride ️⭐️ 21 June - Essex Pride ️⭐️ 5 July - Pride in London ️⭐️ 14 July - Bristol Pride ️⭐️ 26 July - Norwich Pride ⭐️ 10 August - Darlington Pride ️⭐️ 16 August - Crawley Pride    *More dates TBC! 🏳️‍🌈   Want to book Pop'n'Olly for your Pride/Family Event? Details here.

Dear Jean-Francois, June is Pride Month – a time when we come together to celebrate visibility, acceptance, and how far we've come. But for too many LGBTQ+ young people, Pride isn’t a celebration — it’s about survival. While others take to the streets in joy, they’re wondering where they’ll sleep tonight. Today, LGBTQ+ people are still twice as likely to experience hidden homelessness as their non-LGBTQ+ peers. One in three trans people will experience homelessness. Too often, they’re forced to choose between being themselves and having a safe place to sleep. The situation is not getting better. With rising hostility and rejection, Pride Month offers precious little to celebrate for many LGBTQ+ young people. For us, Pride is still a protest. While we celebrate our community, our joy, and our resilience, we also stand up for those who can’t.   We will keep marching — louder, prouder, and with purpose — until every LGBTQ+ young person is safe, supported, and free to live as themselves. Introducing Our Pride Appeal Today, we're launching our Pride Appeal to directly support LGBTQ+ young people near you, facing homelessness or living in hostile environments during one of the most difficult times to be visibly LGBTQ+ in the UK. Your donation can provide real, tangible help: £31 could provide emergency supplies to a young person coming off the streets £49 could cover a night's stay in safe, warm accommodation £100 could deliver expert caseworker support to eight young people Jean-Francois, will you be the reason a young LGBTQ+ person feels safe this Pride? DONATE NOW Be Their Pride This Year When you give to akt, you're not just helping someone off the streets – you're giving them the chance to feel proud for the very first time. You're giving them a future filled with safety, support, and joy. This Pride is an opportunity not just to show up but to step up. With so much uncertainty facing the LGBTQ+ community, Pride can't just be a celebration — it must be a call to action. So please party with purpose, celebrate loudly, and be the reason someone finally feels like they belong. Be the reason a young LGBTQ+ person doesn't sleep on the streets tonight. With gratitude, Adam CEO, akt P.S. Pride is about celebration, visibility, and acceptance. Your donation helps LGBTQ+ young people experience these feelings, perhaps for the very first time in their lives. DONATE NOW

View this email in your browser Dear Jean-Francois It’s the start of Pride Month and we have two exciting bits of news: we have reached a major milestone with the launch of our 30th safe house and we are debuting our powerful new film Who’s There? 30 safe houses brings Micro Rainbow’s housing capacity to more than 40,000 bed-nights each year, offering safety, dignity, and hope to some of the most marginalised individuals in the asylum system. To mark this achievement and kick off Pride Month, we are also proud to launch a powerful short film, Who’s There?, which tells the fictionalised story of Alex. Alex is a gay man from Malawi seeking asylum in the UK. He has hidden who he is his whole life, trying to stay invisible. Even after reaching the UK, he wasn’t safe, and he continued to hide himself. It was only once he moved to a Micro Rainbow safe house and met Gabe – an openly proud gay man – that he felt safe enough to start showing his true self to the world. Being able to be himself was transformative. It helped him to finally become whole. We love the film, and think it shows the transformative impact that living in Micro Rainbow’s safe housing can have on LGBTQI people fleeing persecution. We would love it if you could help us spread the word of the film and our new milestone by sharing it as much as possible with your networks, and on your social media! I am a proud supporter of @MicroRainbow and the work it does to support #LGBTQI people fleeing persecution. Now with 30 safe houses, they can provide safe and inclusive housing for even more people like Gabe and Alex. Watch the film to learn more: https://bit.ly/3EMkeL3 Introduction from the Editor Welcome to Pride Month everybody! I’m honoured to have been asked to write the introduction to this edition of Link’s global newsletter. Last month I went to a Pride event in Birmingham, UK. Knowing I was going to be writing this introduction, I stopped to take stock of what Pride is all about today.  When I went to my first Pride event 30-odd years ago, the marches were more politically orientated to fight for equal rights. I was frightened about being seen and I didn’t tell the people I lived with where I was going but I knew I had to go to make a stand. Well, I had no fear about being seen or telling people I was going to Birmingham Pride! Quite the opposite. For me, Pride has now become an inclusive celebration of identity and diversity, as well as a way to educate people about the challenges still facing our community. It creates a safe space where we can connect with others and share experiences. Pride has always stood for supporting people in the LGBTQ+ community when things go against them. One thing I noticed at Birmingham is how much support there is for Trans people, not just from LGBTQ+ people but also allies. For anyone who needs to feel supported, I’m confident that Pride 2025 will prove that lots of people in the world still love and care about them. I hope you find this newsletter interesting to read and have a great Pride Month.   Warm regards, Matt Deaville Link Committee Member