LGBTQIA+ Heritage Project
The LGBTQIA+ Heritage project is lead by HERe NI in partnership with The Rainbow Project & Cara-Friend. These three main staffed organisations in NI have a vast amount of material and clients who lived through this period- but none of this has been archived or collated. With this exciting new project all of that is about to change!
The project is staffed by the volunteer & training Officer Mary Ellen Campbell and the Development Officer Joe Walsh.
The project History timeline will start from 1998 with the introduction of Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act through to current day. During this time period, little has been recorded on the personal history of our community and the leaders at the forefront of effecting change and the campaigns that brought about these legislative changes. Nov 2022 – April is the planning stage of the project and this is when a lot of research and establishing project foundations will be cultivated.
We aim to create an oral history archive in the form of podcasts to uncover forgotten stories, develop an LGBTQ+ history club, development of an LGBTQ+ film club, create and maintain an online archive of local LGBTQIA+ history create an LGBTQ+ Heritage E module/App along with an LGBTQ+ history course to deliver to young people, schools, community and voluntary sector organisations and last but not least we will be creating an LGBTQ+ Heritage Trail in Belfast city centre.
You may now be thinking HOW CAN I GET INVOLVED?
This is where you can be part of the journey in helping collate, curate and create the content that will be a legacy for our community and ensure that the exciting stories of our rich LGBTQIA+ heritage are preserved and told.
Online Archive
We are always looking for contributions to our online archive, any donations of photos, tickets to events, leaflets, memorabilia, essays or written accounts
Heritage walk
We have created a Heritage walk around Belfast city centre based on interesting historic places and events that are related to our community, any contributions to this are welcome. Come along to some of the walks and give feedback to help us improve our information and the experience.
History club
Be part of our Monthly history club, we meet monthly and discuss events and how they have impacted. Meeting on the last Tuesday of the month
Film Club
The film club meets Bi-monthly and examines an historic LGBTQIA+ film with a discussion afterwards. We also look at local films and documentaries (times to be arranged)
E-learning
This is an opportunity for groups to access our 4 e-learning modules based on LGBTQIA+ history and local heritage
Podcasts
Volunteer to have your story recorded in a podcast and added to the archive or suggest to someone you know to contact us to have their story added to the fantastic content we already have.
Lunch & Learn
This is an opportunity for community groups, businesses and services with staff teams to learn about the LGBTQIA+ community, how to be a better ally, how best to adapt the workplace for including LGBTQIA+ people
Volunteering
Many roles will become available for volunteers, some of them temporary and some more long term but all of them fun and engaging. As the project establishes itself the roles will grow. Volunteers will be an integral part of the progress and success of the project.
Promotion
Helping us to reach the maximum amount of our target audience by sharing our social media posts and talking about the project to friends and family. Give feedback on what you would like to see in our content. Like and subscribe to our youtube channel.
Whatever way you can help we are grateful for your input and look forward to collaborating with you in the near future as we preserve the fabulous past.
