Our community engagement project with Black, Indigenous, and racialized (BIR) 2SLGBTQIA+ people has come to an end — though this work will go on.
Spectrum would like to thank the Government of Canada and WAGE for investing in 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations. We would also like to thank Janet Egan (she/her) and Kerry Gervais (she/her) who were extremely helpful as WAGE Program Officers.
Special thanks to all the organizations and community members who engaged with us during this project. We are grateful for your time and trust. Spectrum looks forward to being a more welcoming and safer space for Black, Indigenous, and racialized members of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities because of your engagement with us.
We also acknowledge those community members who were not prepared to engage with us. We understand your position and will work to become an organization that you can trust.
We recognize this project as a first step in a journey towards becoming an organization that better serves all 2SLGBTQIA+ people.
As promised, we’d like to share our final report with the community. This report summarizes what we heard during the community engagement project and includes recommendations for things that Spectrum (and potentially other organizations) can do to better serve BIR 2SLGBTQIA+ people.
We have already begun working on some of the recommendations. You have told us that you would like a BIR 2SLGBTQIA+ program that is run by paid BIR co-facilitators. Our hope is to create a space in which racialized folks can feel safe to discuss and find support regarding all aspects of their identity. We will soon be hiring two co-facilitators who will work with us to create and deliver this program. Stay tuned!