16 June 2022 - The UNIQUE partnership, consisting of 9 partners in 7 European countries, stands in solidarity with LGBTIQ* Prides in Europe and worldwide. The UNIQUE project promotes the full inclusion of all students in vocational education and training, including LGBTIQ students. GALE is part of the partnership.

We completed successfully a 3-days “Train-the-Trainers” Workshop which was organized by GALE in Amsterdam, on the 11-13th of May 2022. Our participants, VET Teachers/Trainers from the project’s partner countries, had the chance to get trained on anti-discrimination and active inclusiveness of LGBTIQ learners within VET institutes.

Our 3^rd Transnational Meeting, which took place in Amsterdam on 9-10 of May 2022, was just completed. The meeting was hosted by GALE and contributed not only to the design of our future activities but also to the team’s bonding. The partners had the chance to meet face-to-face for the first time, due to COVID-19 measures and local lockdowns that had been imposed throughout the first year of the project’s implementation.

The main aim of the manual is to introduce a non-discriminatory VET educational strategy, promoting the inclusion of LGBTIQ people and challenging discrimination and human rights violations based on sexuality and gender, as well as other forms of exclusion.

This manual is meant to aid VET teachers and trainers, as well as the developers of training Curricula and materials, in increasing their understanding of sexuality and gender and building their capacity to recognise stereotypes and discriminatory patterns against LGBTIQ people, creating VET programmes that are inclusive of sexual and gender diversity, and evaluate VET curricula from a gender and sexuality informed standpoint.

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Read our 2nd newsletter HERE.

Read our 2nd newsletter HERE.

The second Transnational Meeting of the UNIQUE partnership was held on 20 October 2021. Due to the uncertainty caused by COVID-19 throughout Europe, it was organized online via Zoom platform and was hosted by our German partner, BK Consult.

The partnership discussed the progress of the project and the next steps. Currently, the partners have completed the National Reports which presented the status quo of LGBTIQ inclusiveness in VET in Greece, Poland, Croatia, Bulgaria and Cyprus (the piloting countries) as well as the level of discrimination that LGBTIQ VET Learners are facing due to their sexual orientation or gender expression.

In June, KES College has successfully organized two focus groups with students from their college. The discussion of the focus groups included issues such as preventing and combatting homo/trans/biphobic stances, perceptions and behaviours against LGBTIQ learners in the vocational education and training (VET) sector, thus facilitating their equal participation and creating an inclusive and safe educational and training environment.