You are warmly invited to the Rainbow Pilgrims Symposium

This Symposium is to set a platform for dialogue across communities and sector, to meet and share experiences around issues of migration, identity and faith.

The day will include panels, multi-media presentations, talks, pop-exhibitions, performances and plenty of room for networking and debate.

This event is open to all.

Participation is free of charge. Places are limited. Please cancel your order asap in case you cannot make it so others will have the opportunity to attend.

FULL PROGRAMME:

10:00 Venue opens – tea/coffee

10:30 Welcome

Prof Margaret Greenfields, Director of IDRICS, Buckinghamshire New University

Susan West, MSc, BSc (Hons), RGN. RNT, FHEA, Dean of Faculty Society & Health, Buckinghamshire New University

10:35 Rainbow Pilgrims

The project and (online) exhibition pre-launch, Surat-Shaan Knan, Ella Hollowood & team

10:45 GRT (Gypsy, Roma, Traveller) Voices, moderated by: Prof. Margaret Greenfields

• Chris Lee, Romani Cultural and Art Company: RCACs involvement in establishing a European wide Roma LGBTQI+ ‘movement’.
• Henry Chapman, MA student, Lancashire: Romany Gypsy LGBT activism & mini-docu screening.
• Q&A

11:35 Coffee/Tea Break

11:50 No Safe Refuge – moderated by Surat-Shaan Knan

• Dominic Arnall, Head of Projects and Programmes, Stonewall
• Leila Zadeh, Executive Director, UKLGIG (The UK Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group)

No Safe Refuge Report & current developments and challenges in UK asylum policy for LGBTQI+ people + Q&A

12:30 Global Perspectives, moderated by Prof Eleonore Kofman, Middlesex University

• Paul Dillane, Executive Director, Kaleidoscope Trust, Yogyakarta Principles Plus 10: advancing human rights and protection for LGBT+ refugees globally
• Pliny Soocoormanee, Peter Tatchell Foundation, Jumping over the rainbow with LGBT+asylum seekers

• Dr Moira Dustin, Research Fellow, Sussex Law School, SOGICA – Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Claims of Asylum in Europe: A European human rights challenge.
• Vijay Patel, multimedia artist, University of Porto, Portugal: Designing Multiculturality: Widening the Debate

13:30 LUNCH

14:15 Faith Perspectives – moderated by Alex Gabriel (Blogger, Atheist).

• Siobhán Anderson, Programmes Coordinator, 3FF: Interfaith Skills for LGBT+ Groups
• Jenny-Anne Bishop OBE, Elder for the Metropolitan (LGBT+) Congregation of Wilbraham St Ninians Church Manchester: Working with LGBTIQ people seeking refuge and asylum

14:45 Faith Panel – moderated by Alex Gabriel.

How religions and the people that practice them might use their sacred traditions to share stories as a process for progressing the position of those previously living on the periphery of society.

• Jide Macaulay, Founder & CEO House Of Rainbow CIC
• Dr Syed Haider, Hidayah LGBT Muslims
• Rabbi Aaron Goldstein, Liberal Judaism

Q&A

15:45 Break

16:00 PERFORMANCE by the wonderful poet-ess PJ Samuels.

16:10 Rainbow Pilgrims LGBTQI refugees & asylum seekers panel, moderated by Surat-Shaan Knan (Rainbow Pilgrims founder) featuring Scotch, Monica, Cee and other project participants from Micro Rainbow International & The First Wednesday and other groups who have so generously shared their stories.

Q&A

17:00 Closing.