Hello everyone! 

My name is Nadja Aronchik and I am part of the NKO Resurs LGBTKIA Moscow. This year we organize the Fifth LGBTKIAPP+ Family Conference. The conference unites LGBT+ community, LGBT+ families and specialists like psychologists, sexologists, educators etc. who work with vulnerable groups. And we need your help to make it happen!

Why is the conference so important?

Russia is a very homophobic country. In April 2017 the persecution and killings of more that 200 LGBT people in Chechnya were revealed. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. LGBT+ people face discrimination on a daily basis. In 2016/2017 there have been 366 documented cases of violence and hate crimes on grounds of sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI). And the number has only risen since the “aniti-propaganda-law” has been passed in 2013.

Our conference is a unique platform for an exchange of unbiased information between specialists of helping professions (psychologists, educators, pedagoges etc.). It is the only platform in the CIS that addresses the problem of homo-, bi- and transphobia among psychologists and provides guidelines on working with vulnerable groups. The conference also helps LGBT+ connect and experience the support from others. 

What have we done so far?

For the past five years we have worked closely with the LGBT+ community. Every month we held 40 different events (support groups, language courses, movie screenings, educational seminars, supervisions etc.). We already published four collections of articles based on the seminars of the past conferences and held two festivals for family equality.

And we won’t stop. Last year several of our volunteers and guests were attacked by homophobes after the second day of the conference. We had to postpone the third day but we still made it happen. The support of the LGBT+ community and our colleagues has shown us how important this event is.

The LGBTKIAPP+ Family Conference is a unique opportunity for experts and the community to meet. In 2017 we had about 400 participants. Among them 200 specialists and 35 speakers, like the Italian PhD psychologist, sexologist, intersex-researcher Dr. Massimo Di Grazia and the founder and director of Swiss Rainbow Families Association Maria von Känel.

How can you help?

To provide this one of a kind platform for exchange, education and support we need money. We are a volunteer-based organisation, so we can cover a lot of preparations. We hope to invite international experts this year as well. With the popularity of the conference rising we await 500 participants this year.

What we need to cover is

Security (1000 Euro), articles collection with the results of the conference (printing, binding, copywriting) (2000), salaries (organizers, manager, speaker) (3000), travel and accommodation expenses for speakers (1500), video and after-report of the sessions (800), food and catering (700), info material for participants (500), taxes (500)

All costs to indiegogo and taxes for money transfer considered, around 20% of the collected money gets lost. That would be around 2000 Euro that we need to add to our sum.

Which makes a total of 12 000 Euro.

We already found a great place that will provide us rooms for those 3 days FOR FREE. We also talked to several speakers who agreed to participate pro bono. We minimized all our expenses and used our resources to make the conference happen with only the 10 000 Euro (usually you need at least 50 000 for a three day long conference!).

Now we need your help to continue support people in Russia. Help us share the idea of stereotype-free counselling and respect to Human Rights.

If you can't contribute yourself,  please share this projects with your friends, colleagues or on social media. We appreciate any kind of support!

Help us provide this important platform for the LGBT+ community and people of helping professionals!

Further Information

You can check out our work on our webside: http://resourcerus.org/en/home/

A post-release of the last years conference you can check out here: http://resourcerus.org/en/conference-2017/

If you have any questions regarding this project, feel free to email us at n.arontschik@gmail.com