During the AIDS 2018 conference in the RAI in Amsterdam, the Community of Practice on Sexual and Gender Diversity  (SGD) of Share-Net Netherlands facilitated a session for visitors of the global village.

When people should focus on love instead of on sexual acts, celebrating sexual and gender diversity would more easily be appreciated worldwide.

Mainstreaming SGD is:
The integration of an SGD perspective in the preparation, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of internal and external policies, regulatory measures, advocacy, and programmes.

Programme of this session:

• Exercise Genderbread (30’)
• Mainstreaming SGD (15’) – Interview with Albert Obbuyi, dir. CSA, Kenya
• Mapping Share-Net Netherlands (15’) – Who is doing what and how on SGD in Dutch development cooperation

People of different countries participated; from Nigeria, India, Malawi, Spain, Iran and the Netherlands. Questions were raised about how the mainstreaming exactly was done to convince NGO’s in Kenya to include SGD; what worked well? Albert explained that personal testimonies from LGBTI people were very powerful in addition to public health and human rights arguments. Interesting proved also to be that key concept could be used to frame the discussions on SGD as it allows to speak about the sensitive topic of SGD in communities within a frame like injustice, zero tolerance or dignity. A father of the National Council of Churches in India, Fr. Thomas Ninan, explained their work on ESHA, the program ‘Towards a Greater Inclusivity in Churches and in Theological Education’, and their efforts to include SGD.

Materials referred to or used during the session:
PPT SGD Working Group – AIDS 2018
Genderbread Excercise
Addressing Sexual and Gender Diversity in Dutch Development Cooperation