GALE The Global Alliance for LGBT education
This page gives a short overview of the history of GALE.
The Global Alliance for LGBT Education (GALE) will complete its starting phase by the end of 2007. The website will become gradually operational as a working platform for members. Members will be recruited and become involved. Projects in Brazil, Namibia, Asia and Europe will start. Some of these are supported by a transnational development group which focuses on teacher training.
To support smaller LGBT organizations in organizing educational projects, GALE will develop a capacity building program. GALE will start the development of a Worldwide Information Campaign against Prejudice and Ignorance which should be implemented in 2009.
GALE explores the opportunities to collaborate with UNESCO, ILGA, International AIDS Service Organizations and women’s organizations and works on its visibility and reputation with international and local educational organizations.
The Global Alliance for LGBT Education (GALE) had its starting phase in 2006. After a needs assessment by Peter Dankmeijer during 2003-2005, practical work was started to create a global association of educators who deal with LGBT issues. In the end of 2005 and start of 2006, a mission statement and general outline was developed. Experts were asked to join a preliminary board. The preliminary board met in March in Geneva, where the Global Alliance for LGBT Education was founded. After this, operational plans were developed and a trip to explore funding was made to New York. After the human rights conference in Montréal, the board met again and decided about the operational plans. In the last part of 2006, the implementation of these plans was started by developing an online platform and by planning concrete implementation projects, which should be the core of the alliance.
During the years 2003-2005, Empowerment Lifestyle Services initiated a worldwide assessment of views on education about LGBT issues and the need to create a network.
In 1998, Amnesty International and HIVOS invited Empowerment Lifestyle Services, a Dutch consultancy on LGBT Issues in Education, to organize a workshop on education against homophobia for the Human Rights Conference during the Gay Games in Amsterdam. This was the first workshop in its kind. The main recommendation of this workshop was to create a global network for exchange and to raise the quality of work being done.