Individual Support
National Support Line for LGBTQ Palestinians – A joint project of Al-Qaws and Aswat
In the last seven years, Al-Qaws operated an ad hoc support line during office hours. In addition, in 2007 Aswat launched a support line for LGBTQI Palestinian women operated twice a week by Aswat's group coordinator. However, in the last year, we recorded a significant increase in the number of callers from individuals seeking information and support around many varied issues, including issues around being fearful about coming out of the closet, help and support around their lifestyle and issues related to different forms of discrimination and homophobia thatthey have encountered. Perhaps, most importantly, callers who wanted someone to listen.
Evidently, we recognized an urgency to answer the needs of the Palestinian LGBTQI community, both living inside Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories- to operate a national support line. The first step towards establishing a national support line for Palestinian LGBTQI was to establish a support line project committee. This is the first project where Palestinian LGBTQI organizations join efforts to promote our services in order to answer a growing need in our community.
Establishing a national support line- first of a kind- requires keen organizational and professional effort and commitment. With this in mind, we dedicated the first half of 2009 to building the professional infrastructure of the support line. During the past six months, we built the grounds to initiate the support line. First, we began by setting the goals and objectives, developing criteria for a training course, recruiting participants and finally launching the training course in April 2009.The support line training course (the first course ends late June, 2009) aims to provide participants with practical skills and train them to answer callers through building their capacities and strengthening their listening and communication skills. Goals of the first National Support Line for Palestinian LGBTQ
- To establish the first link between Palestinian LGBTQ individuals and organizations (allowing access to LBGTQ individuals);
- To provide safe and anonymous space and a sympathetic ear to address the individual needs of Palestinian LGBTQ callers;
- To provide initial support, counseling and information related to LGBTQ in the Palestinian community;
- To be reachable to individuals who cannot reach us;
- To channel the needs of callers and connect them with relevant services such as welfare, shelters and support agencies.
The Support line's launching is planned to take place on September 2009. We will soon publish additional information about the line number, work hours etc.
Advocacy & Legal Support
Al-Qaws is the leading source of advocacy and legal support for Palestinian LGBTQs. There will always be individuals from our community who face oppression in their immediate surroundings that directly affects their well being and, in some emergency cases, endanger their lives. Al-Qaws is committed to addressing the underlying causes of these problems by promoting social change in the community at large—by reaching out to all Palestinians, not just LGBTQ Palestinians. But we understand that this is a gradual, long-term process, and in the meantime, incidents of oppression and persecution will force us to help some individuals take practical, immediate steps—such as leaving their homes—to ensure their personal safety.
Al-Qaws aspires to work with large network of local and international human rights organizations to ensure the safety of members of our community and provide advocacy and legal support on their behalf. Yet, Al-Qaws staff and activists, in most cases, don't have magical or immediate solutions- and sometimes we can't help more than to give a sympathetic ear and/or mediate between individual and other agency.
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