Conference Call in Amsterdam.doc

So I’m on the flight from Amsterdam to Barcelona – I’ll copy, paste, and post when I have net access. The guy I was originally supposed to be sitting beside was clutching an air sickness bag for the whole five minutes of taxing to the runway and safety instructions. Luckily, the bank of seats opposite was completely free so I charmed the lovely flight attendant into allowing me to sit there. I’m spread out over three seats and loving the comfort.

So I’m trying to capture a week spent in the beautiful city of Amsterdam working on a landmark conference for youth activism. The conference was with the organization I’ve been doing my internship with – in addition to the research with Prof. Rottger – called IGLYO (International Gay and Lesbian Youth Organization). The organization is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and decided that this occasion was a fitting moment for its largest and most diverse conference ever. It’s extremely hard to summarize into a blog post but the significance of the gathering is profound. It is the first time that such a diverse group of LGBT youth activists have been brought together. We had representatives from over forty countries and every continent in attendance. Not only that but a reunion of past organization members the weekend before. It was probably the most significant conference in the organization’s history.

During the week I was putting in about 15 hours a day. The schedule usually went from about 9am – 11pm with a few drinks at the end of the working day being a fitting reward. My tasks as a local volunteer were numerous – we did food prep for lunch, dinner, and coffee drinks; prepared the spaces of the conference centre; led participants to and from their hostel; and any general support to the logistics team.

I also took on two other tasks during the week. I was the daily newsletter profile writer. Every day I’d interview activists from different parts of the world for thepaper the next day. I did interviews with activists from the Netherlands, the UK, Mexico, Canada, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Uganda, and Lebanon. I liked playing journalist for the week. My deadline was 5pm each day and I was only late once.

My third job of the week, both the reason I first came to the organization and the one that consumed the bulk of my work, was as head researcher/compiler of the 25 years of IGLYO Memories Project. I’ve been digging in the organization archives theses past five months and networking with past members. It was decided this work then be displayed in an online database of memories. The website is set to launch in September. Thus, I spent a lot of time this week scanning, copying, talking with reunion members, and liaising with the technician and web designer. I also had two give two speeches during the week to introduce the project to the IGLYO community. On the first night of the conference, a Sunday evening launch with 200 guests, I gave a five‐minute presentation about the archive process. It was really successful – I was able to speak confidently about our work to the large and important group.
The week had a profound effect on me. I’m attempting to divert my dissertation topic and make the focus the conference and the organization.

With this memories project and the network of past activists I have gained, along with the contacts ofover fifty international LGBT youth, I am confident that a dissertation focusing on IGLYO would be a stronger project than the one I initially outlined. Also, it is an organization that has little to no academic attention and I think that after 25 years its importance should be written about. I see an opportunity here to write about IGLYO that I didn’t see originally.

But more than that, it was humbling to be around such a wonderful, courage, and brave group of young people. We may think we have problems and social injustice in Canada but it is NOTHING like some of the thing these participants have to face athome – there are human rights violations happening all around the world. I met activists from Uganda, Sri Lanka, an Lebanon who communicated how hard it was to live their everyday reality in fear of persecution, imprisonment, and physical harm. The international gathering, and the statements and principles reached by those in attendance will be published and distributed as strategies for LGBT activists worldwide. They will also be sent to organizations that matter and lobbied for in the UN. It was an extremely significant gathering.

In addition, I met some really great people. Just like the MAIPR program, the international networking keeps happening – I have contacts of people in thirty different countries on every continent. Undeniably, the week has tired me out, BUT, I have a fantastic week in Barcelona with Jessica to look forward to. The return tovacation starts in twenty minutes once we touch down in Barcelona…we’ve already started our dissent. Until then…

Doc’s Prescription of the Day: The week in Amsterdam was extremely humbling. In Canada we take our freedoms for granted, while many human rights issues in therest of the world are ignored. Appreciate activism.