The first ever ILGA Oceania Human Rights and Health Conference kicks off in the capital on Wednesday. Directly feeding into the work plan of ILGA Oceania, ILGA World and the UNDP, the Proud Conference “is a great opportunity for our communities to add our voices by identifying the issues affecting us here in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific as well as share our stories on the international stage,” says Rawa Karetai, the ILGA Oceania, New Zealand Representative and Conference Co-Convenor. “We’ll be able to use the outcomes of the conference to inform our representatives and also encourage the attendees to do their part towards a greater global LGBTI movement. Karetai says the organisers hope to reignite the fire within the attendees to continue the work that is still needed to be done in the LGBTI Human Rights and Health sectors. The opening ceremony on Wednesday night will feature a keynote speech from ILGA Executive Director, Renato Sabbadini and set the scene for what is to come. International guests of the conference include Helen Kennedy, Co-Secretary General of ILGA, Carlyle Jansen, the founder of Good For Her, Toronto’s premiere sexuality shop and workshop centre and representative of the Samoa Fa’afafafine Association, Ymania Brown, among others. Mani Mitchell, who is also the ILGA New Zealand Representative and Conference Co-Convenor says as an attendee at the worlds first ever gathering of intersex activists in Brussels in 2011which was organised by the ILGA, “I am proud beyond words that Aotearoa is hosting the first ever ILGA Oceania conference in Wellington.” Mitchell says, “I am sure we will have a great conference because of the extraordinary involvement of the local LGBTI community here in Wellington who have got behind this event in a very super human way”.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Saturday, 5th March 2016 - 10:26am