First information on IDAHO 2013 perspectives

Dear all,
As we are hearing more and more about plans developing for IDAHO-T 2013, we wanted to share with you some early information that might help you plan ahead of your own IDAHO-T events, and connect to others.
For more info or input on any of the items below, please write to either: contact@dayagainsthomophobia.org or joelbedos@gmail.com
We will be coming back with updates and new info (reasonably) regularly.
Wishing you all happy IDAHO-T preparations and please, as usual, keep us informed about your plans, so we can share it with others and develop further our vibrant and diverse mobilization in favor of sexual and gender diversity.
The IDAHO Committee

1) Global IDAHO Mobilisation action

Following discussions with many organisations who supported the idea of a joint IDAHO-T mobilisation action, the IDAHO Committee worked with the activists who have developed the 'Rainbowflashmob' initiative over the past years to launch a 'Global IDAHO-T Rainbow Flashmob'. Like always with IDAHO-T actions, the idea is to have a very lose joint 'umbrella' to link us to one another without attaching this to any policy agenda, which obviously can only be developed by participating organisations locally.
We are working on a revised website for the RainbowFlashmob initiative and on a teaser video to announce the initiative. Both should be available early January in English, Spanish, Russian, German, French and Portuguese. The teaser video will have no spoken or written element, so it should be usable in all linguistic contexts).
The site will allow anyone to register an event and become a partner of the initiative (the format of the event is very much open, with a reference to the rainbow colors as main common thread). It should also allow for individuals to participate online directly (tbc).
More info coming soon.

2) Fighting Stigma related to SOGI within projects focusing on HIV

Following many discussions since last summer's World Aids Conference in DC, we identified the need to do more in depth work on how HIV-focused projects take into account the fight against stigma related to sexual orientation and/or gender identity. A general quick overview of the field, and discussions with activists, identified a strong interest for more concrete implementation tools and strategies, and the need to increase institutions and donor agencies' attention to this.
We are in the process of discussing how to take this work forward and we invite interested stakeholders to get in touch with us, specifically around sharing experiences of using the IDAHO-T within HIV-Aids focused programs. We are working at putting some activity together for IDAHO-T 2013 and suggestions are most welcome.

3) Policy agenda : Mainstreaming SOGI into development aid

In the wake of the conference we did last year with OECD, the World Bank, Unesco and some bilateral aid agencies, we are looking this year to continue the work of raising awareness of the economical cost of homo/transphobia for developing countries. Again, organisations or experts who want to join the existing working group are welcome to contact us. Events for IDAHO 2013 are not yet planned.

4) International IDAHO Conference 'Joining Forces, Moving Forward : In Europe and Beyond"

The Dutch Government will be hosting a broad International IDAHO Conference, which will take place in the Hague on May15-17.
The aims for this IDAHO conference are "to promote emancipation of LGBT people, to combat violence and discrimination based on gender (identity) and sexual orientation, and to take stock of public leadership, policy achievements and cooperation in Europe and beyond". The conference will include high level plenaries and workshops, including :

• Govt. Focal Point Roundtable
• European Gay Police Association Conference
• ILGA-Europe Council of Europe project Roundtable
• NATO LGBT informal Roundtable
• International Rainbow Cities Roundtable
• Council of Europe LGBT project partners Roundtable
• Presentation of the Fundamental Rights Agency survey

5) IDAHO lessons to fight homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools

Although this theme was mainly our focus last year, we will keep working with UNESCO again to promote the use of the IDAHO Lesson Plan which the UN Agency developed last year. In 2012, some organisations had also developed their own specific IDAHO kit, which can serve as a good source of inspiration for those who would want to use the Day in 2013 to address schools and other education institutions. Ressources can be found at http://www.dayagainsthomophobia.org... and http://www.dayagainsthomophobia.org...

6) IDAHO resource kit on fighting 'reparative therapies'.

In response to strong interest from organisations, and to the growing influence of dogmatic religious groups, we will be updating the resource kit in Spanish which we have developed in 2011 and 2012 for the Latin-American campaign 'Curas que matan' ('Killer Cures/Priests'), which focused on reducing the influence of the so-called 'reparative therapy' approaches. This should be done in January.
More info to come soon

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Editor: Day Against Homophobia
http://dayagainsthomophobia.org