The fight for LGBTTQ+ rights emerged as one of the key topics at a major international youth conference recently held in Ottawa – the annual event’s first stop in Canada.
The One Young World Summit took place Sept. 28 to Oct. 1 at the Shaw Centre in downtown Ottawa.
The event is the principal global forum for 1, 300 young leaders, aged 18-30, from 196 countries, and provides a platform to share ideas and develop solutions for global issues.
“We’re really young leader-led. Because we engage with leaders they’re incredibly proactive and they give us a lot so we’re able to be driven by them rather than by an executive strategy,” said Ella Robertson, managing director of One Young World International and daughter of co-founder Kate Robertson.
Kate Robertson and David Jones, both former advertising representatives, established U.K.-based One Young World in 2009. The organization establishes an advisory board and a local organizing committee for the host city.
Polls of more than 10, 000 young people and by 40 different focus groups help organizers identify the most important topics for youth and choose themes for the summits. This year, for the first time, LGBTTQ+ rights were extensively discussed at the summit.
“We are massively in favour of gay rights and advocating for LGBTQ rights. It’s something we will not compromise on, including not going to countries (to hold the conference) where it’s illegal to be gay,” said Robertson.
A plenary session at the Ottawa summit, titled: “Why are the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) communities still being persecuted in 2016?” was held Sept. 29. Mark Tewksbury, an openly gay Canadian Olympic gold medalist swimmer, was the keynote speaker.
Four speakers and six delegates ranging in age joined Tewksbury. The delegates from various countries spoke on such issues including being a transgender person.
Melissa Bryant, a delegate from the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, told delegates that she hosted a social commentary radio show called Voices from January to September 2015, which discussed and debated issues facing the LGBTTQ+ community. The show gave a platform to the “very few” LGBT rights activists from the country, said Bryant, who described St. Kitts and Nevis as a deeply religious country that champions nuclear families and heterosexuality.
“I think there’s a movement to cut down on the laws in the Caribbean that criminalize gay sex,” said Bryant. “But, I think equally important, there has to be a cultural movement, as well, because getting rid of a law is not going to make people accept other people and the fact that they have human rights.”
Another delegate, Naomi Iwazawa, spoke about the closed society of Japan. Iwazawa is Japanese-Czech, and being multicultural she faced bullying and prejudice during childhood.
To help future generations in Japan, she created an organization called Diversity that organizes workshops, activities and after-school programs to teach children about multiculturalism, the LGBTTQ+ community and disabilities.
“I originally started with only foreign people who have different backgrounds and I realized like these are not the only minorities in Japan. … The solution is just that society’s unused to the differences because they’re minorities,” said Iwazawa.
Iwazawa has many friends in the LGBT community who she says are struggling with similar problems to those who are multi-cultural and she tries to solve this through her organization.
One Young World seeks to encourage young leaders to take ideas into the world and create solutions for big issues.
A unique element of both the Olympics and the OYW organization, according to Robertson, is that no matter a country’s size, summit delegates are chosen based on merit.
Next year the summit will take place in Bogotá, Colombia, and will feature new speakers, delegates and ambassadors seeking to effect worldwide change.
“We’re looking for people who are really going to take on the challenges in an ambitious and transformative way,” said Robertson, “because the problems we’re facing now need transformation.”