Pride Month: Celebrating organisations supporting LGBTQ+ communities in Cornwall

Pride month is all about acceptance, equality, celebrating the history, raising awareness and working towards a brighter future for LGBTQ+ communities.

As Pride Month ends, we wanted to celebrate a couple of the brilliant organisations that support the LGBTQ+ communities in Cornwall.

One group CCF has funded is Safe Haven - Cornwall, a now registered charity offering support and advice for transgender adults and young people, their partners and family. The support available helps to reduce social isolation, mental health issues and promotes social inclusion. Many members of Safe Haven are afraid to go out in public for fear of being recognised. Some are unable to speak to their family and hide their identity away for fear of losing loved ones, their job or sometimes their home.

Safe Haven - Cornwall run three support groups, hold monthly weekend events and organise different workshops. In the past this has included party nights, meals out and talks from guest speakers including one from the Police and Diverse Communities Officer on hate crime. When the pandemic hit, Safe Haven - Cornwall moved their support online through Zoom. The social isolation many members felt was even greater and often the online sessions proved tricky for some who were still living with family unaware of their feelings. As soon as the charity was able, they held in-person support groups once again.

Safe Haven - Cornwall works hard to tackle the issues facing transgender people. Their work enables members to speak to others (trans and non-trans) in a positive way helping to make trans people more familiar within society taking away that initial prejudice from others and helping them to feel accepted.

Another organisation that we have supported is LGBTQ+ Youth Cornwall. Their work promotes social equality and human rights of LGBTQ+ young people in Cornwall through education, recreational activities and support. These are conducted through a series of youth group sessions, talks in schools and colleges as well as presenting to professional bodies, helping to raise awareness of the LGBTQ+ young community.

LGBTQ+ people in Cornwall are often socially and rurally isolated, negatively impacting on them and leaving them to feel very alone. Having these youth groups in place and raising as much awareness as possible, LGBTQ+ Youth Cornwall have created opportunities for young people to meet others, learn from other experiences and receive that much needed peer-to-peer support.

Here at Cornwall Community Foundation, we are open and transparent grant providers and do not discriminate. We welcome groups from all communities in Cornwall and are happy to discuss funding for future projects.