LGBTQI+ Awareness & Informational Workshop for Georgian Immigrants in New York

This community-based educational workshop, led by Konstantine Svanidze, a proud member of the LGBTQI+ community and a trauma-informed psychosocial specialist, will take place on May 3, 2026, in New York. The workshop will bring together Georgian-speaking LGBTQI+ immigrants, allies, asylum seekers, parents, and community members for an informative and supportive discussion about LGBTQI+ identity, terminology, visibility, dignity, safety, and community participation.

The event will focus on understanding LGBTQI+ concepts, including the difference between gender identity, sexual orientation, gender expression, and lived experience. It will also explore why respectful language matters when people speak about their own stories. The workshop will discuss the importance of visibility, community education, and informed support for LGBTQI+ people, especially immigrants and asylum seekers who may come from countries where LGBTQI+ people still face stigma, discrimination, or violence.

Before this workshop, we began preparing the community through public Georgian language conversations and interviews shared on our Facebook page. These conversations included voices that have rarely, if ever, been heard publicly in this way within the Georgian community in the United States: a Georgian mother speaking openly in support of her gay child, a gay Georgian man openly sharing about his life and his adopted children, a psychologist working with immigrant women, and other community voices connected to identity, family, migration, fear, resilience, and acceptance.

For us, this is not only an event. It is a difficult and meaningful step toward building a safer ground where Georgian LGBTQI+ immigrants and their families can speak more openly, be seen, and feel less alone. This work is not easy. It requires courage from activists, families, professionals, and community members who are slowly opening doors that were closed for many years.

For the Georgian LGBTQI+ community, May 17 is a deeply painful date connected to fear, violence, silence, resistance, and courage. Preparing this May 3 workshop became one of our most important steps toward connecting Georgian LGBTQI+ immigrant voices in New York with the global mission of IDAHOBIT.

The event will include Georgian language scripts, educational materials, and community discussion. If IDAHOBIT organizers or partners are interested in future collaboration, we are open-hearted and ready to provide additional materials, photos, videos, English translations, subtitles, and documentation that can help make these invisible needs, stories, and voices more visible.

VICI Team LLC is open to future collaboration, translation support, documentation sharing, public awareness work, and any additional steps that may support Georgian LGBTQI+ immigrant visibility within the global IDAHOBIT movement.

by ILGAWorldComms