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The Rainbow Coalition for Refuge and the Centre for Newcomers would like to invite you to Surviving to Thriving: A National Gathering to enhance justice, equity and belonging of LGBTQI newcomers.

We envision three energizing days of diverse voices, opportunities to connect, share know-how and support. All with the aim of promoting better pathways to safety and responsive communities of belonging for all LGBTQI or SOGIESC newcomers arriving and settling in Canada.   Your participation will contribute to the development of  new tools, knowledge and practice guidelines for use across Canada.

Sessions will explore these themes:

  • The Global Context of LGBTQI Human Rights, Protection and Persecution
  • The drivers of forced displacement of LGBTQI and the implications for resettlement
  • Promising practices for creating safe refuge and prepared arrival communities in Canada
  • LGBTQI migration rights in Canada
  • Promising practices for decolonizing settlement work, and working towards Indigenous solidarity and Anti-Racism
  • Promising practices for building intersectional, anti-oppressive and trauma informed frameworks for assisting LGBTQI newcomers
  • Advocacy, ethics and the legal context of LGBTQI resettlement
  • Knowledge sharing in support of Toolkit and SOGIESC National Guidelines Development

The gathering will be held on the traditional ancestral lands of the Blackfoot Confederacy, including the Siksika, Kainai, Piikuni and the Blackfeet of Montana. These lands extend from the North Saskatchewan River down to the Yellowstone River in Montana, from the Rocky Mountains east into Saskatchewan. It is also the territory of Treaty 7 of Southern Alberta, including Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, Tsuu’tina, Iyerhe Nakoda (Wesley, Chiniki and Bearspaw bands), Metis Region 3 and all people who have chosen to make this place their home. We express our respect fot Indigenous, Metis and Inuit peoples across Turtle Island.

Rainbow Coalition for Refuge Steering Committee:

A note about language:

We use newcomer to encompass all migration pathways, family, employment or economic, and refugees who arrive in Canada after facing persecution related to Sexual Orientation Gender Identity Expression or Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC). We use LGBTQI (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex), while acknowledging that no acronym or term can capture the beautiful diversity of human genders, sexualities and sex characteristics, nor the complexity of migration pathways.