East meets West SPOTLIGHT SERIES

We had a great talk to CGLCC, Canada's 2SLGBTQI+ Chamber of Commerce, about their work and mainly about the "historic" LGBTIQ Trade Mission to Europe. Trade Missions are well known to many, but an LGBTIQ Trade Mission? It is one of the concrete ways how LGBTIQ owned businesses can get more visibility and tap on new business opportunities. Talks on LGBTIQ Business have also always a prominent place at our signature events, our International Conferences. The next one takes place on June 16th in Vienna, the Capital of Austria and will be also streamed ONLINE. Our "Corporates going beyond their borders" panel includes Supplier Diversity & Inclusion and our LGBTIQ Travel panel is just perfect for new entrepreneurship endeavours.More on https://www.eastmeetswest.eu/2023conference.

Often the name of an organisation gives you a good idea about what it stands for. The name LGBTQ+ Founders does not do that, so when we from East meets West got to know Ignacio Nietocarvajal and Kristaps Krafte, the co-founders of this organisation, they needed to clear the fog in our minds but very quickly we became quite enthusiastic about this unique initiative that fills a gap in ways of supporting new LGBTIQ initiatives.

Did you know that the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be celebrated only next year, on December 10th 2023? Ahead of this milestone, starting on this year's Human Rights Day United Nations will launch a year-long campaign to showcase the UDHR by focusing on its legacy, relevance and activism.

Every initiative, be it a profit or non-profit project, starts with a great idea. But the journey from an inspiring idea to an entrepreneurial success is filled with numerous challenges. Important is to get here the support from professionals who can tell you how to deal with challenges and help you to take the right decisions. East meets West is happy to present in its March SPOTLIGHT SERIES such a helping hand.

How much do you know about the current situation in Hungary? We all are aware of the recent Hungarian Legislation, that makes providing information on LGBTIQ to people under 18 years the object of legal sanctions. This comes in addition to already existing laws against the well-being of the LGBTIQ community (e.g. ban on gender change).

For our October SPOTLIGHT recording we invited Támas Dombos, the true expert on what the situation is in Hungary. He made us familiar with the new legislation in Hungary, the local political context and most importantly, the implication of the legislation to workplace inclusion. Legal aid services are among the key activities of Háttér Society, the leading Hungarian NGO where Támas serves as the member of the board.

But Támas was not alone who we interviewed. We asked Ludo to tell us more about the new East meets West ONLINE series SHARING THE GOOD PRACTICES FOR YOUR WORKPLACE INCLUSION IN HUNGARY, events to examine which could be the right (clever and efficient) position of corporates vis-à-vis this legislation. He recently interviewed four important corporate players in Hungary and in this SPOTLIGHT recording he shares with you the key learnings.

For our September SPOTLIGHT recording we invited a true expert on the topic of advancing LGBTIQ Economic Empowerment - Phil Crehan. He has a great track record in social inclusion and economic development with an LGBTIQ focus. This also brought Phil to the strategic role the World Bank is playing in improving the LGBTIQ well-being, a role that is not enough known.

Our summer break is over and we are back in full speed! This includes our famous SPOTLIGHT SERIES. For August we actually invited ourselves to the studio and had a great fun talking about our 2021 East meets West Conference. We talked about what motivated us to go to Poland and build a studio there, about moments we loved and moments we were sad about and of course, we went once again through the agenda and picked the most important messages from our speakers.

At the occasion of IDAHOBIT, The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, we talked to renowned Slovak researcher and lecturer Veronika Valkovičová PhD about LGBTIQ Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): What do such ERGs stand for? Is this only a recent invention and what do we know about their roots?  Why do these ERGs exist? What’s needed to make them an important part of an organisation?

When it comes to LGBTIQ Diversity & Inclusion in Europe, Poland is the country that dominates the headlines... though with negative or even shocking news. For our 7th East meets West SPOTLIGHT SERIES we travelled (virtually) to Krakow, the second largest city in Poland, once the capital of Poland, now one of Europe's most beautiful cities.

For our 6th series we had the pleasure of talking with Robert Hutchinson, the Co-founder of The Gay Happiness Project (www.gayhappinessproject.com). Robert is a transformational coach, leadership consultant, and founder of The Authentic Life Company who specialises in self-awareness and personal development. Since 2017 together with Christopher Samsa, who is a positive psychologist and senior consultant with the NeuroLeadership Institute, they have run The Gay Happiness Project, an impactful, modular program which brings together gay men in a positive, safe and non-therapeutic space. The program is based on a unique blend of mindfulness, applied neuroscience, positive psychology and self-compassion.

Did you know that there are several Gay community challenges? For instance mental and emotional wellbeing is consistency poor among the gay male population, 13% of gay & bisexual men currently experience moderate to severe levels of depression & anxiety compared to 7% of all men. Compared to the general population, gay people aged 16+ are: 3x more likely to be diagnosed with depression, 3.5x more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety and 6 x more likely to have thoughts of suicide in their lifetime.

In the 2020 East meets West SPOTLIGHT SERIES we offered to a variety of people the space to share with you their unique views or projects they are working on.