Pride without Borders December Update!

Hello!

Pride Without Borders have had a pretty busy few months!

We now have a website - https://pridewithoutborders.wixsite.com/pride

Hopefully this will help people to find us and to be able to find out about us privately if they so wish.

There will be more content on there soon.

This group has been growing and growing from a small intimate gathering into something larger.

We now have 13 members attending meetings plus a few more who stay in touch. We have recruited some great new volunteers who have all contributed amazing things, whether they be building a website, making a really pretty stall, sharing their moving and witty poems, taking members to see strange and beautiful circus events or just connecting and listening really well in meetings.

Thanks to the members who have stuck with us and helped to make it such a lovely welcoming place to be and to the new members who have joined us and brought fresh energy.

One member recently observed: "This group is my family. And now it is a BIG family!"

Thanks also to the organisations who have been sending new members to join us - referrals have really picked up.

We know that we are offering something that is valuable for our members. Evidence from PWB has helped quite a few members to achieve refugee status, particularly considering that claims for protection from persecution based on sexuality or gender identity are notoriously hard to evidence and win. We are offering a space to talk frankly about well being and mental health and about the challenges of being resilient and positive. We have great conversations about how to reconcile sexual and gender identity with religion and traditional values. We also eat a large quantity of biscuits.

We have moved on a long way thanks to our growth and the solid foundation that St Paul's Learning Centre offers us as a base. Unfortunately we are going to need to raise funds somehow to pay for more staff time. A bigger group means more needs, more people who are struggling with trauma from the past and with the asylum system.

So I am asking if anyone is able to help us with a fundraising event or ideas for raising money?

We don't pay rent and our overheads are minimal, so funding would buy more staff time to organise events and respond to people's needs.

I have attached a photo of us from Bristol Pride 2017, just because it is a great photo!

Thanks!

Tom