2008 Grants Awarded

For many years the LGBT RPCV Group has contributed available funds, those beyond our operating costs, to projects and programs that match our organizational goal of promoting Peace Corps ideals and the legal, political and social rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people around the world. In the past awards have gone to projects that current PCVs or RPCVs are involved in, or to gay rights organizations in Peace Corps countries where PCVs have volunteered or worked as a secondary assignment. Past grants have gone to projects/programs in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.

This year we are granting funds to two projects.

PFLAG Project – Romania:
A current Peace Corps volunteer is working with Accept, Romania’s gay rights organization to provide PFLAG type information to families and friends of LGBT Romanians. They have translated American PFLAG information into Romanian. This information will be available on the internet. In addition they want to produce about 2000 printed brochures. We are providing a grant of $600 to do this. We do not mention the PCVs name for security reasons. There is much homophobia in Romanian culture, and we don’t want to compromise her ability to be successful in her primary assignment. The volunteer is also active in the LGBT PCV Support group in Romania.

Fakaleitis Documentary – Tonga:
RPCV Brian Favorite is finishing up filming a documentary of the lives of the transgender fakaleitis of Tonga. During his tour of service he came to know the fakaleitis community, took some video clips of interviews and their annual Miss Galaxy pageant, the biggest event in Tonga each year. His purpose is to highlight the contributions made by the fakaleitis to the wider Tongan society, and to provide visibility to this community to a world usually unsympathetic to our transgender brothers and sisters. We are awarding him a $1000 grant for post production work. Distribution will be in 2009. The documentary will be suitable for public television and LGBT film festival viewing. He has a recent article and a video clip on our website.

Financing These Awards:
Beginning in 2008 we discontinued requiring and collecting dues from members. We still accept $15 from each National Peace Corps Association member, who designates LGBT RPCVs as their affiliate group. At the same time we discontinued our printed newsletter. Printing and distribution were costing us about $2000 a year. Starting this fall/winter we will launch a campaign to raise funds for grants in 2009. Looks like we can open a pay pal account on our web site to facilitate contributions online. You’ll hear about this in the next few months.

If any of you would like to see either of the proposals awarded grants, let me know lgbrpcv-news@lgbrpcv.org