Creating Accessible Communities
In 2024, IGLYO provided €10,000 IGLYO Grants for 3 new projects implemented by our Member Organisations in the EU, in addition to supporting the grantees with expertise. This year’s thematic areas were: contributing to more inclusive education systems; counteracting the anti-gender movement; and strengthening accessibility. You can learn more about the IGLYO Grants Programme on this page.
With their IGLYO Grant, our Czech Member Trans*parent/Queer & Trans Youth (TP/QTY) CZ set out to create accessible and intersectional community spaces for those within our movement.
Project Aims
The project core aim was to make the organisation more accessible to queer youth with a variety of additional needs: queer autistic or neurodivergent youth, deaf/hard of hearing, blind/visually impaired and those with mobility restrictions such as wheelchair users. The funding was used to map the community’s needs and take actions which would make a real impact on the accessibility of their events.
The secondary aim was to build an intersectional understanding of social movements, and the connections between anti-LGBTQI+ hate, ablesim and racism. This part of the project sought to find avenues to uplift the voices of minority ethnic communities and take concrete steps to prevent racism and micro-aggressions within community spaces.
Finally the project explored ways to understand how the organisation’s social media communication could reinforce intersectional values to TP/QTY’s community and social media followers. The concrete objective was to ensure that the organisation's social media content expresses solidarity and inclusion.
How they did it
The project began with a needs mapping process speaking with people in the local community with lived experience of a wide variety of disabilities to develop content for the accessibility guidelines for event coordinators and organisations. The TP/QTY team also researched international examples of guidelines on accessibility finding best practices and integrating them into the accessibility guidelines.
The results from the needs mapping and research were used to develop a first draft of the Accessibility Guidelines. The draft was developed by a core team of disabled and Black and POC activists within TP/QTY. This was then presented to members of the TP/QTY community who organise events for review and feedback.
vSix pilot events to test the new guidelines were held in Prague, Brno and online. Each event invited those with additional needs to contact the event coordinator in case any particular support was needed. Informal feedback was collected at each event by those who had additional needs, and fed into the Guidelines document.
Three events were also held which aimed to introduce the topic of intersectionality to the community, open discussion on multiple forms of discrimination and how to be an effective ally. These events and the new guidelines are only the beginning of the process and each year TP/QTY will review their progress and continue to alter their approach as necessary to best serve their community.
It is thoroughly impressive the work TP/QTY has undertaken and IGLYO wishes them all the best with this work long into the future.
With the support of
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The IGLYO Grants Programme is funded by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) 2021-2027 programme of the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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