Pride in Gloucestershire 2024

Aim

To improve inclusion and accessibility at our Cheltenham and Gloucester Events

Core to our values are ensuring the activities we deliver are inclusive, accessible and promote the diversity within our community.

This supports and empowers LGBTQ+ people to engage and remove barriers to involvement. This is key to giving them confidence to break down the walls that hold people back from reaching their full potential. When people feel isolated; alone and worried about how the world perceives them its easier to lock yourself away then tackle and solve the issues at hand. 

Our team has grown significantly as our work has and we have managed this by ensuring we are also accessible and inclusive to our volunteers. We develop our team and have introduced a training certificate scheme to upskill our people and empower them to put their ideas into practice.

This project is has 2 aims centred around the two most prominent of our Prides. 

Inclusion Zone at Gloucester

Firstly; extending the work we have done previously at our main Pride event in Gloucester around inclusions with areas like the Trans Zone or developing accessibility. We would like to create a community village this year that provides more for those groups where engagement has started, but also allows to look at other parts of the community like People of Colour and the Neurodiverse. This new extension at Gloucester needs seating, fencing, gazebos, signage, decor and power. This project includes the purchase of a new mobile portable battery power source for the community village to incorporate more interactive features without hiring another diesel generator. This equipment we purchase will then be used to deliver a new but smaller inclusions zone at the Cheltenham event an with this power source will we can now have a sensory zone and more interactive displays. 

Pride in Cheltenham Accessibility and Safety

The second aim is geared to making Pride in Cheltenham more accessible and safe with a growing event. We need additional event signage and a better equipped accessibility information point to make it easier for people to get access to the venue and to things that are happening within it. We also need to ensure we have the necessary safety in place in terms of security, medical and noise monitoring in additional to accessible toilets and this funding will cover these costs.

Safe spaces are vital if the LGBTQ+ community is to have the confidence to access the support and activities provided at Pride.

This project successfully funded on 28th March 2024