IGLYO’s Keep the Faith Conference kicks off in Brussels

BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 30 – IGLYO’s Conference Keep the Faith: Promoting Inter-religious and Intercultural Dialogue in the LGBTQ Youth Sector kicks off today in Brussels, Belgium.

The official opening of the conference will take place on Wednesday, October 31^st, with a reception organized at the Belgian-Moroccan Cultural House Daarkom.

Keep the Faith is bing held in partnership with IGLYO’s Belgian member Wel Jong Niet Hetero (Young But Not Straight). The event is kindly supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe and the City of Brussels.

The conference brings together over forty LGBTQ youth activists from around Europe to share their experiences in promoting intercultural and inter-religious dialogue and to learn about ways to strengthen their efforts.

Through Keep the Faith, IGLYO aims to empower young LGBTQ advocates and to enable the creation of networks between cultural and religious groups, organizations, individuals and experts to better promote intercultural and inter-religious dialogue through IGLYO’s work. The conference builds upon IGLYO’s current strategic focus area to promote dialogue with religious/faith-based institutions and establish alliances to fight religion-based homo/bi/transphobia.

Keep the Faith will draw perspectives from different sectors, including local government and various pan-European and international cultural, religious organizations, equality networks. Representatives will come from the Brussels Ministry of Equal Opportunities, the European Network against Racism, the Metropolitan Community Church, Merhaba, the European Forum of LGBTQ Christian Groups and many other organizations.

The event will address issues of intersectionality, multiple discrimination, faith-based homo/bi/transphobia and the social marginalization of LGBTQ youth with different religious, cultural, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.

IGLYO will post daily updates on the Conference and its outcomes on its webpage www.iglyo.com. For more information contact Zara Shushanyan, IGLYO Board Member, at zara@iglyo.com or + 32 493 16 89 79.