Social Work with People Practicing Same-Sex ... - ILGA Europe

This method calls for special professional knowledge and skills as well as a powerful
material and technical support. But most importantly it calls for a consolidated LGBT
movement with a significant experience of advocacy and media work. Media campaign
has a multi-million coverage of the population, shapes public non-acceptance of
homophobia in the society and, in case of a long-term influence, reduces stigma and
discrimination.
Laws of the genre:
• Media campaign would be inefficient if only one channel of communication is
used (for instance, only radio or big boards, or television).
• Media campaign would be inefficient in the case of short-term effort (half a year,
one year) conducted outside of prime time.
• Before and after media campaign, a research should be conducted in order to
assess the behaviour change among the target audience.
All campaign products should:
1. In the course of their development be tested through focus groups;
2. Tell people what to do and where to go for help/ information (should indicate
contact information of the organization).
Media campaign
Pluses Minuses
Multi-million coverage of the
population;
• Initiating discussion among
broad population;
• Gradual formation of a
normal attitude to the LGBT;
• Forms public non-acceptance
of homophobia in the
society;
• Reduces stigma and
discrimination in case of
long-term influence
• Very expensive.
• Produces a negative reaction of some fascists and
orthodoxes.
• Does not change the individual attitude to LGBT.
• Does not affect internalized homophobia of the
MSM, WSW and LGBT.
• Does provide rights protection and problem
solving mechanisms.
• Calls for special knowledge and skills as well as
material and technical support.
• For its start-up the media campaign requires
a very strong and professional team of LGBT
organizations.
Consequently, to respond to stigma and discrimination NGOs and initiative groups are
recommended to use the following methods in their work:
1. Group methods;
2. Community awareness raising;
3. Working with media/ developing public relations.
These are the methods that do not require large material and technical expenditures and
demonstrate the best correlation between the impact and coverage of the population.
On the concert of Sir Elton John
in Kyiv on June 16, 2007:
“The concert of John is a
propaganda of homosexuality
on the country's main square.
Elton John with his “husband“
use as a cover the noble idea of
fighting AIDS, while this is gays
who are the main spreaders of
the disease 1 .
Valerii Vladimirovich Kaurov,
co-chairman of the All-
Ukrainian Civic Organization
“Union of the Orthodox
Citizens of Ukraine“, chairman
of the civic organization
”single Fatherland“.
From the interview to “Vlast
Deneg“ magazine on Elton
John 2 :
“When beside the presidential
couple there sits one of the wellknown
representatives of the
sexual minority, incidentally,
a very outstanding person,
[…] it looks great. This is a
normal democratic country
demonstrating itself to the
world“.
Victor Mykhailovych Pinchuk,
billionaire, media tycoon, son
in law of the ex-President of
Ukraine Leonid Kuchma
1 Newspaper “Zhizn kak ona est“
issue of 16 June, 2007 #91 (898),
P. 2: article title “Gaynialny vizit“
(author Valentine Morozov).
2 Ukrainian business weekly “Vlast
Deneg“, issue #25 (145) of 31
August — 6 September, 2007:
article ”sex-election” (authors —
Olga Ansimova, Inna Alekseyenko),
P. 28.
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