Successfully Completed LGBTQ+ School of Activism in Niš

Another generation of activists has successfully completed the LGBTQ+ School of Activism!

Over four days in April, we worked with nine queer activists from Niš, Leskovac, Babušnica, Kuršumlija, and Dimitrovgrad as part of the second LGBTQ+ Activism School organized by the Association Da se zna!, held in Niš.

Participants gained knowledge and insights from Vladimir Pavlović from the Belgrade Open School, who delivered a series of lectures on public advocacy and initiating change; Dragoslava Barzut from Civic Initiatives, who led sessions on public assemblies and protests, as well as on the history of the queer movement; and our Bojan Lazić, who taught about legal protection mechanisms against hate crimes. Our Matija Stefanović delivered a lecture on queer identities and the Law on Gender Identity and the Rights of Intersex Persons, while Aleksa Krstić from the Heartefact Institute spoke about intersectionality and the connections between the queer movement and other social movements and groups. A special focus was placed on mental health. The program began with an empowering psychological workshop led by psychotherapist Mirjana Mitrović, and concluded with a session on maintaining activists’ mental health, led by psychologist and psychotherapist Jelena Mitić from the organization Potent.

The nine remarkable and courageous queer individuals who participated in our school were given the opportunity to shape their activist ideas and needs into concrete actions, and to begin developing and discovering their own activist paths. We see in them those who will, especially in southern Serbia, build new spaces of freedom and resistance for the LGBTQ+ community.

The LGBTQ+ Activism School was supported by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.