IDAHOT/IFED 2017: news are coming in from the frontlines around the world!

All around the world advocates and activists are announcing their plans to celebrate  International Family Equality Day (IFED) and International Day Against Homophobia Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) under the title “Love Makes a Family”.
Throughout Europe, the Rainbow Cities Network is joining the IFED-IDAHOT 2017 celebrations by  organizing a photo exhibition on family diversity. It will highlight the importance of supporting different sized and shaped families and their legal and social recognition. In Berlin the focus is on trans-families.

The now traditional European IDAHO Forum will take place in Brussels, and will once again gather representatives from EU governments and institutions, and civil society networks from the all over the Europe.
In Poland the Rainbow Families Festival will be held in Gdańsk to celebrate family diversity. The city of Vienna, Austria, will take a lead within the Rainbow Cities network to organise an exhibition on “Families”, with many other member cities due to pick this initiative up too. While in Russia a 10 day festival on families will span from May 7 to May 17th, the German Equality body will host an event at Berlin’s iconic Brandendurger Tor on May 17th as part of their year-long focus on sexual orientation; and in Switzerland, the Movie Festival “Opportunities” will be held in cooperation with Pink Apple Zurich and include activities for younger and older children.
The new French national anti-discrimination action plan has declared IDAHOT a national day of action at all levels, including all local and national authorities and all schools in the country. This comes as a welcome concrete step to implement the official recognition that the Government gave the Day some years back and will surely generate a lot of IDAHOT initiatives throughout the country.
Brazilian organisations are busy preparing the annual IDAHOT march in Curitiba and other events around the country where hundreds of events are staged every year. In Lithuania, organisers report that the mid-May “Rainbow Days” festival 2017 will stretch over 3 cities: Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda, with the aim “that the festival gets down in History as one of the most important events for the local LGBT community”.
In Hong Kong, the Asia-Pacific Rainbow Families Forum,will gather families from Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and China for an historic IFED-IDAHOT forum.
As many of you have already noticed, the US government has announced that Chelsea Manning will be freed on May 17.
The UN Free and Equal campaign has once again exciting projects up its sleeve and is busy preparing its much awaited IDAHOT videos, focusing this year on family values, in line with the year’s theme.
In Australia, Brisbane’s LGBTIQ+ activists have once again a fantastic IDAHOT line-up, which will see several bridges and public buildings light up in Rainbow colors, the Rainbow flag fly on many official institutions, and most probably an IDAHOT-themed train carriage!
In Cambodia, activists will organize village exhibitions to bring parents, siblings and LGBT couples who are out to come together in rural village in rural provinces to increase the acceptance of LGBTIQ+ people by their parents and communities.

Regardless what your event for IDAHOT/IFED 2017 is, please incorporate the hashtags #IFED2017 and #IDAHOT into your online and social media communications for gaining more visibility.

If you’re looking for ideas, check out our special article and the “Ideas for action” section on this site.

Let us know about your own plans and ideas so we can circulate them to inspire others.
Write to us at contact@dayagainsthomophobia.org or info@internationalfamilyequalityday.org