Embrace me if you love me

Name of the activity: Embrace me if you love me

Country/NMO: China (IFMSA-China)

Program: Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

Type of the activity: Education. Education on health issues for specific societal groups, either in the form of projects (set of tasks for a certain group over a fixed period of time), events (something notable that happens) or conferences (form meeting about ideas related to a particular topic, usually over several days).

General description:

Facing the fact that the LGBTQI group are still being discriminated against in China, we designed the event to let more people around us understand and accept the group. By collecting common questions, publishing popular science articles, giving out handbooks and postcards, and collecting hugs from pedestrians, we met the basic progromme objectives.

Focus area:

LGBTIQ+ issues

Problem statement:

May 17th is the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) was chosen to commemorate the decision to remove homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases of WHO. However, according to a national survey — “Being LGBTI in China – A National Survey on Social Attitudes towards Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression” LGBTQI people in China still live in the shadows, with only 5% of them willing to live their diversity openly and face discrimination.

Target groups:

Other Students

Beneficiaries:

Other Students, LGBTQIA+ community

Objectives and indicators of success:

Objectives:

 Enhance students’ understanding of the definition LGBTQI;

 Let more students’ understand homosexual is not a kind of disease;

 Increase the acceptance of the LGBTQI group by students;

 Support the LGBTQI group

Indicators:

 We sent out 100+ handbooks about basic LGBTQI knowledge;

 We got 1116 people read our popular science article on common LGBTQI questions and propaganda of the event;

 We took pictures of 60+ people showing their support to the LGBTQI group;

 We sent the pictures to our local LGBTQI group “LESGO”.

Methodology:

Before the event, we applied for handbooks from our local LGBTQI NGO. Also, we designed special postcards. We collected common questions about the LGBTQI group and wrote an online Q-A popular science article.

During the event, one of us wore a monkey costume dressing up as a monkey from the LGBTQI group as the rest of us gave out handbooks about basic LGBTQI knowledge as well as special designed postcards for May 17th. We invited supporters to hug our “LGBTQI monkey” to show their acceptance.

After the event, we collected pictures of hugs given by pedestrians and published them online. We wrote a report about the event and published them on our social media.

Plans for evaluation:

We made an evaluation form and asked participants to fill it out including the following factors:

1) What is your overall assessment of the event? (1 = insufficient – 5 = excellent)

2) Which parts or aspects of the event did you find most interesting or useful?

3) Did the event achieve the programme objectives? If no, why?

4) What knowledge and information did you gain from participation at this event?

5) How do you think the event could have been made more effective?

6) Please comment on the organization of the event (from 1 = insufficient to 5= excellent)

7) Comments and suggestions (including activities or initiatives you think would be useful, for the future)