community
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CIVIL SOCIETY: ‘Music can be an entry point because it’s the last thing someone could take away from you’
CIVICUS speaks with Darcy Ataman,founder and CEO of Make Music Matter, a civil society organisation based in Canada that uses the creative process as a therapeutic tool to help empower excluded groups and people.Music isn’t necessarily the first thing people associate with civil society work. How do you use music as part of your work?
We use music for two main purposes. One is the healing of trauma, and particularly of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. The second is to create opportunities or vectors for advocacy. We do all this through our Healing in Harmony music therapy programme.
We work with groups, usually of 10 to 25 people. Working as a group brings safety, especially when you’re in the creative process of singing and writing. But we don’t work with groups so large that participation gets diluted and ceases to be effective.
We always recruit participants through local partnerships. All operational staff are local and Indigenous, wherever we work. And programmes are set up to fit into a larger care model. For example, our flagship site is at Panzi Hospital in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Patients come to us from the hospital: women who come in for surgery get their physical healing and then get referred to us for mental, psychological and spiritual healing before going back to their villages.
In eastern DRC there are lots of survivors of sexual violence, due to way sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war there. But trauma can come in a multitude of ways and our results are always the same.
What we do is build little recording studios wherever we operate and insert our programme into a larger holistic care model. People come in twice a week. They work for about an hour with a local music producer in tandem with a local therapist.
It’s a four-month cycle: for the first three months they go through the creative process of writing and recording an album, just like any other artist. While that is happening, we interject cognitive behavioural therapy in a way that’s not particularly noticeable.
So people don’t come in thinking they are coming for a therapy appointment, which has a lot of stigma; they come in to do art in a fun setting.
That is why our attrition rates are almost nil. We’ve had at least 11,000 people go through the programme globally and you could count with one hand the amount of people who didn’t finish – and that was typically because they got a good economic opportunity.
We analyse the music that comes out of this process. A lot of experiences people have gone through are so overwhelming that talking about them directly would retraumatise and retrigger the brain. But through lyric writing and metaphor and music, it gets out of people’s heads in a way that doesn’t cause retraumatisation. And once it’s out of their head and articulated in one form or another, we can set a treatment pathway.
How did you get started?
Our origins were organic. While I have a psychology degree, professionally I started as a music producer. In 2009 I was in Rwanda for five weeks filming a documentary and recording an album. We had one day off and decided to give local kids a fun day of recording, so we took some equipment to this little school in a village three hours away in the hillsides. When we got there, we learned the entire village had been waiting for us for hours. The schoolroom was packed. There were kids literally crawling through the windows trying to get in. These were kids 12 to 15 or 16 years old, dressed in homemade hip-hop outfits. They knew the lyrics of all the latest rap songs, even though they didn’t have electricity at home.
They handed us the lyrics of the songs they had written for us to record, and it was all very heavy subject matter: about HIV/AIDS and what it does to communities, about they not wanting to sell their bodies to live another day, about their desire to go to school. There was not one frivolous song in there. We had given them no direction. We didn’t tell them what to write. This was simply what was on their minds, and we realised that for them music was an acceptable way to talk about taboo issues they couldn’t normally talk about.
I had the realisation that something special was happening and thought this was what I, as a professional producer, could do to help. And it was something that nobody else was doing.
How effective is the programme, and what do you think explains this?
We monitor and evaluate our programme very closely. We quantify everything. We analyse our impact on variables from school enrolment and permanence to adherence to drug recovery programmes. A year or two ago our first peer-reviewed study was published. It was terrifying, because we couldn’t ethically keep going if we found we were not achieving results. But the results showed that this was very much like a magic pill: it really worked better than anything else.
I think effectiveness lies in the programme’s insertion into a larger model. We want to be the last missing psychosocial piece. We don’t want to set people up for failure. For instance, we have another site in rural DRC that started in 2016 and even though we had the funding – we even constructed our own buildings for the studio – we paused and waited until our partners’ microfinancing programme was operational because we didn’t want to heal people psychologically, pump them up and then have them fail due to lack of opportunity to be financially independent. So we have these checklists we do before we start operating.
Our outcome is the healing, and our output is the music. We lead with music: it’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s our passion. But behind the scenes is a very serious therapeutic intervention. We use music almost as a trick that attracts people and retains them. And in the meantime, we do other things, so at the end of each four-month cycle there’s an album done by this group.
The music they help create with the local producer comes back to us for mixing and mastering. We have a team of about 100 engineers from all over the world who do this as volunteers. And the music gets sent back to the community and disseminated in whatever ways the local community consumes music, be it AM radio, MP3 players or CDs. We also release the music globally on digital platforms.
People own the rights to all their music so they can get royalties. And it helps in terms of advocacy because this is how they tell their stories directly to the world. This gives power back to people on the ground and also helps rebuild their sense of self-worth. The final piece of that four-month cycle is a community concert where they perform the songs they have written.
For participants, it is a sort of symbolic graduation, and it also brings communities back together. Survivors of sexual violence who’ve been stigmatised or kicked out of their homes or villages now go on stage in front of a lot of people – we easily get over 1,000 people per show. They sing a song they wrote about their story. Shame is gone, agency is back. Owning your story changes the way the community sees you. I’ve seen husbands who kicked their wives out ask them back and wives say no and laugh at them. I’ve seen mothers of children born of rape start to take care of them for their first time, breaking the cycle.
Do you work exclusively in places where there’s collective trauma from war? Is your focus on violence against women, or do you also work with other target groups?
Our data demonstrates that our results are equal across the board, no matter what culture or context or reasons for trauma. We have six sites in the DRC, but we also work in Guinea, Peru, Rwanda, South Africa, Turkey and Uganda, and we’re just starting to work in Canada.
The idea started in Rwanda, where we worked with the trauma caused by HIV/AIDS, orphaned children and obviously the genocide. Our work took off in the DRC, where participants were primarily survivors of sexual violence, but also with former child soldiers and former sex slaves. In Peru we work with Venezuelan refugees, mostly young kids. In Turkey we work with Syrian refugees who not only have mental trauma from the war but also have physical injuries and disabilities on top of the stigma of being refugees. And in Canada we will be working with Indigenous communities; this work involves a lot of generational trauma that gets passed down.
The most decisive criterion is whether the community wants us there. We do not parachute in or force ourselves in. We start with community sensitisation aimed at the community taking ownership. We wait for them to ask us to come in, otherwise it just doesn’t work. There needs to be community ownership, because if it is just about the funding or the opportunities you are bringing to an impoverished community, on the first bad day you are going to lose them.
One of our sites in rural DRC is literally triangulated by three rebel groups. Sadly, this village gets attacked regularly. But we’ve been there since 2016 and haven’t lost a single cable. No one has ever touched the studio. In fact, quite miraculously we haven’t lost anything from any of our sites. Community partnerships really work.
Do you have any advice to give to other civil society groups about the value of incorporating art into their work?
Music plays a bigger role than you can imagine, simply because it’s the last thing someone could take away from you. If you’re in an active conflict zone, or you live in extreme poverty, or your community has shunned you, or you are in the hospital after being raped, you may have nothing, but you still have your ability to express yourself through art and music. It doesn’t require any equipment and it doesn’t cost anything: you only need to write some lyrics and a melody in your head to express what you feel.
I’ve spent a lot of time in some awful places, and it may sound silly but it’s true: music is the last thing people hold on to get up in the morning. It’s the one thing people hold on to no matter what. That makes it an entry point to so much work that civil society can do.
When I first started with this idea, I was ignored, I was laughed at, I was told point-blank that this was never going to work. But third-party, peer-reviewed research has proved that this works for healing trauma. It works better than literally anything else on offer. It is always hard when you come up with an original idea, but you should persevere.
Get in touch with Make Music Matter through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@mmm_org on Twitter.
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HONDURAS: ‘We demand environmental justice in the face of corrupt interests insensitive to local needs’
CIVICUS discusses community resistance to mining mega-projects in Honduras with Juana Esquivel, representative of the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa. The committee is made up of local organisations and communities that oppose extractive projects that threaten the environment and common and public goods.On 13 June, an open council meeting convened by the Tocoa mayor’s office approved a petroleum coke thermoelectric plant, despite a legal appeal by the local community. It is feared the project will cause deforestation, sedimentation and pollution of the Guapinol River. A similar conflict took place in 2014 when, without consulting communities, the authorities granted permits for a mine in a protected national park affecting the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers. In response to their peaceful protests against the project, many activists were criminalised and eight were imprisoned for long periods.
Why do you oppose the Tocoa thermoelectric plant project?
We oppose the thermoelectric plant because its impact on human health and the environment would be devastating. The fact that it is less than 150 metres from some communities significantly increases the risks. But these are not reflected in the environmental impact studies the company presented, which contain deliberate errors that minimise the project’s real damage.
The plant would use pet coke, a substance derived from coal and oil that is not regulated for energy production in Honduras. It would require huge amounts of water to operate, threatening the drinking water supply of local communities. Waste would be discharged into the Guapinol River, seriously affecting aquatic life and the ecosystem. The company’s studies absurdly claim that the fish in the river will adapt to the warm water coming from the plant.
Our demands are clear: the project must not go ahead because of its serious environmental and health impacts. We demand that our rights be respected and our environment protected.
Why did you object to the calling of a public town hall meeting on 13 June?
Civil society objected to the meeting because of the history of manipulation and lack of transparency in the implementation of mega-projects in the area. The thermoelectric plant is part of a mega-project known as Los Pinares/Ecotek, owned by the Emco Holdings group, which has six other components: two mining concessions in the core zone of the Carlos Escalera National Park, an iron oxide processing plant and three water concessions on the Guapinol, Quebrada de Ceibita and San Pedro rivers.
The municipality issued a falsified document stating it had carried out a community consultation to validate the project. The project is being presented to the community as a solution to its energy problems, when in fact it is designed to supply energy to the iron oxide processing plant, not the community.
In December 2023, we attended a public town hall meeting where between 2,500 and 3,000 people expressed their opposition to the project. Faced with this massive opposition, the mayor suspended the event, citing security reasons, and in January he unilaterally called another town hall meeting, without the support of municipal institutions, which was suspended following a legal appeal we filed. Finally, in the town hall meeting of 13 June, the mayor manipulated the situation, holding the open town hall meeting against the will of the community and listening only to those who support the project, who are representatives of boards of trustees controlled by the mining company.
How has the community organised against this mega-project, and what reprisals have people faced?
We have been fighting against the Los Pinares/Ecotek mega-project since 2014. We have carried out numerous protests, including holding permanent popular assemblies in front of municipal offices and mass protests. Thanks to these we managed to have Tocoa declared a mining-free municipality and the core zone of the Carlos Escaleras National Park restored.
In 2018, we set up a camp under the banner ‘For Water and Life’, which lasted 88 days. This direct action triggered a wave of criminalisation and persecution. Repression against environmental activism has been fierce, with 32 prosecutions and eight comrades imprisoned for almost three years.
Activists have been murdered and there’s a climate of constant threats and harassment. Hundreds of families have been displaced by threats and the use of excessive force by the authorities and armed groups hired by the company.
Despite these challenges, we continue to fight against the corruption and state and corporate violence that has affected our communities for more than a decade.
Has thegovernment of President Xiomara Castro fulfilled its promises regarding Guapinol?
The government’s actions on this issue have been negligent and have exacerbated polarisation and conflict. Although the government has made Guapinol a central issue on its political agenda, the release of imprisoned environmental defenders has been the result of years of community mobilisation and resistance rather than direct intervention by central authorities.
A significant government debt to Tocoa and Guapinol remains: the complete cancellation of the Los Pinares/Ecotek megaproject. A decree was issued in February 2024 to protect areas of the Carlos Escalera National Park, but it is crucial to ensure its effective implementation and the repair of the environmental damage already caused.
The community remains vigilant and active, demanding environmental justice and the preservation of its natural resources in the face of corrupt economic and political interests insensitive to local needs.
Civic space in Honduras is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@guapinolre on Twitter.
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IRAN: ‘Women and queer people are at the forefront of the struggle against religious despotism’
CIVICUS speaks with Asal Abasian about their experiences as a queer and feminist activist in Iran and in exile.
Asal is an Iranian journalist and queer feminist activist. After receiving threats, they fled Iran in 2021. They first stayed in Turkey, where they freelanced with various foreign-based Persian language media outlets and Turkish media. They’re currently based in Paris, France. In Iran, same-sex relations are illegal and LGBTQI+ people can face the death penalty.
What was your life like in Iran and why did you leave?
My experience in Iran was challenging, uncomfortable and at times traumatic. However, my work as a cultural journalist focused on creativity, opening up new spaces that could escape the overt repression of traditional religious anti-queer social norms, showcasing diversity and expressions of transgression.
Navigating this was challenging because the editorial world was a closed, misogynistic, male-dominated work environment, and because the state constantly monitored our actions. Despite these obstacles, the medium of culture, which I mainly covered, allowed for a certain degree of freedom.
On a personal level, I embodied this challenge by pushing against the norms and visibly wearing my queer identity even in uncomfortable situations. Living in Iran as a queer person is difficult. If a same-sex relationship is exposed, it is punishable by death. Same-sex marriage is a distant dream. There’s a long way to go for the realisation of freedom for the queer community in Iran. Even if a queer person has a progressive and supportive family, the laws are against them and society is strongly queerphobic.
Have you found safety in exile?
Unfortunately, misogyny and homophobia exist everywhere. However, at least in a western country I have no fear of being arrested and imprisoned for my journalism or queer identity.
But discrimination is a universal problem. In France, of course, homophobia is not as intense as in Iran and the Middle East because of protective laws, but it still exists. There are reactionary and dogmatic people everywhere, and I believe this oppression, with varying degrees of intensity, is universal.
Living as an immigrant in the west, you can experience the intersection of oppression. Sometimes the treatment of immigrants, especially queer immigrants, is filled with violence and devoid of empathy and kindness. It seems the system is set up in such a way that immigrants are constantly discouraged from their journey and pushed back.
Has the situation in Iran changed since you left?
Sadly, the situation has not improved. But after the Woman, Life, Freedom movement triggered by the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini by the morality police in September 2022, women and the queer community have found more courage to fight against patriarchy and religious despotism.
Women and queer people are at the forefront of this struggle. Change hasn’t come from the regime, but from people’s resistance against its oppression and tyranny. The fact that women are now at the forefront of civil struggles in Iran is very encouraging because no oppressive force can deter or push them back from their goal of freedom.
However, the situation could be improved by spreading the ideas of inclusivity, equality and dignity through public education and cultural development. Much education takes place in schools, and much is also the responsibility of the media and the free flow of information. This is something we aspire to realise in countries like Afghanistan and Iran.
What does Pride Month mean to you? Do you see a future where it could happen in Iran?
Pride Month reminds me of the long and arduous journey of the queer movement up to this day. The fight against discrimination and oppression is a legacy we, the queer community, are proud of.
As a member of the queer community in Iran, I hope for a day when Pride marches take place in the cities of Iran, and queer people can express their identities with pride, freely and without fear.
But we are still a long way from that day. The problem is that the Islamic regime represents a segment of Iranian society. Part of society is very conservative and reactionary, making the possibility of change towards freedom and a safe space for queer people almost impossible. However, we remain hopeful and continue to fight for that day to come.
Civic space in Iran is rated ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
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TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS: ‘Advancing LGBTQI+ rights requires advocacy, awareness-raising and a concerted effort to foster a culture of inclusion’
CIVICUS speaks with Tim Prudhoe, a lawyer with Stanbrook Prudhoe, about a legal challenge brought against discriminatory legislation against LGBTQI+ people and the struggle for equal rights of same-sex married partners in Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI).
Stanbrook Prudhoe is a law firm specialising in complex and cross-border cases in the Caribbean region.
What legal action are you involved in?
Since 2021 we have been representing Tim Haymon, a US citizen, and Richard Sankar, a Turks and Caicos Islander, in legal proceedings against the TCI government. The case is now up on appeal after findings of breaches of rights protected under the TCI constitution. The couple married in Florida in 2020, but Tim has been denied an exemption from the need to obtain a work permit, although that exemption is available to the spouse of a Turks and Caicos Islander. There is no definition of ‘spouse’ under the relevant immigration legislation and the definition used in the letter of refusal referenced the marriage legislation. The Marriage Ordinance treats same-sex marriages as void.
The refusal of the spousal exemption was by the Director of Immigration. Tim and Richard brought proceedings against him alleging breaches of the protected rights of equality before the Law, the right to family and private life and freedom from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The trial took place in November 2022 and the decision was delivered in March 2024. The TCI Supreme Court upheld two of our three claims, finding violations of the constitutional rights to private and family life and to protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. However, the court did not uphold the claim of equality before the law. That is the subject of an appeal that will be heard on 23 and 24 October.
The government has also appealed. Although it relied on no evidence during the trial, it now disputes any findings of constitutional breach. The government’s legal team remains headed by Ivan Hare KC of Blackstone Chambers in London, UK. Colours Caribbean, an LGBTQI+ rights organisation, successfully applied to join the appeal as an interested party.
Before the claims were first started, Tim and Richard offered to abandon their legal action if the government enacted civil partnership legislation giving same-sex couples the same rights and benefits as opposite-sex couples. Unfortunately, this offer was ignored. Our appeal document itself repeats that offer. When we first made that offer, we even provided the government with a copy of the Cayman Islands legislation recognising civil partnerships as a precedent they could work from. But, again, no response.
The Supreme Court’s decision was a significant step forward for LGBTQI+ rights in TCI. Former TCI Premier Michael Misick criticised it publicly, calling for Richard to have his Turks and Caicos Islander status revoked. If successful, the government’s appeal would be a major setback for equality. Either way, the outcome will have broader implications for LGBTQI+ rights across the Caribbean.
What’s the status of LGBTQI+ rights in TCI, and what difference have recent Privy Council rulings made?
The status of LGBTQI+ rights in TCI has a long way to go still. The government’s reliance on traditional moral standards and recent rulings on marriage issues by the UK Privy Council, the final court of appeal for TCI and other British Overseas Territories, are significant barriers to the advancement of LGBTQI+ rights.
Recent Privy Council rulings on same-sex marriage in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands have significantly influenced the discourse on LGBTQI+ rights in TCI. The combined appeal on the right to marry in the Ferguson case in Bermuda and the Bodden Bush case in the Cayman Islands is particularly noteworthy.
In Bermuda, same-sex couples had the right to marry for a period before the law was changed. Marriages already performed remained valid, but no new marriages could be celebrated – a situation that led to a case being taken to the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that those left out were in practical effect facing discrimination. The Privy Council ruled that marriage was a unique legal institution and those jurisdictions could decide the scope of marriage without violating their constitutions.
This gave us an insight into the Privy Council’s position. However, we distinguished our case in TCI by focusing on recognition of equivalent legal rights rather than the establishment of a right to marry. The government argued we were trying to introduce the right to marry via the back door, because of the attempt to invoke the spousal exemption from immigration restrictions.
The Privy Council’s decision, which confirmed that jurisdictions can define marriage, wasn’t that surprising. TCI’s constitution, like Cayman’s, includes a preamble about TCI being a God-fearing nation. The government’s arguments in TCI appeal rely heavily on this. This is pretty odd, in light of the fact that it failed to present any actual evidence at trial.
Despite these challenges, the LGBTQI+ community and its advocates continue to press for equality and recognition, reflecting a wider struggle in many small jurisdictions.
What are the challenges for LGBTQI+ activism in TCI?
A major challenge is stigma, which is keenly felt in a place as small as TCI. Despite the presence of people who identify as LGBTQI+, there isn’t a well-developed community infrastructure such as gay pubs or clubs. There’s been a slight improvement in visibility following recent decisions, but it hasn’t yet become a significant movement. For example, there’s now anticipation for an upcoming gay pride event, a notable first for the TCI, albeit modest, as a boat trip during Gay Pride Week in June.
Living as an LGBTQI+ person in TCI often means necessarily leading a discreet life. While there are both locals and expatriates in same-sex relationships, such partnerships are not flaunted or embraced as a popular lifestyle choice. Rather, they tend to remain private, perhaps implicitly acknowledged by the community but not openly discussed.
There’s a complex interplay between legal processes and government responses. Despite government appeals against decisions concerning LGBTQI+ rights, such actions are influenced by political dynamics, particularly when elections are approaching. The electorate consists solely of Turks and Caicos Islanders and has strong opinions on issues such as same-sex marriage, which politicians must navigate with caution.
Constitutional protections theoretically guard against discrimination, but practical enforcement is uncertain. While legal recourse exists in principle, instances of intimidation and hostility, such as aggressive media commentary or social media harassment, deter people from pursuing anti-discrimination cases.
In essence, while there is a legal framework to combat discrimination, the challenges of social stigma, political sensitivities and intimidation hinder progress towards full LGBTQI+ equality in TCI.
What role has civil society played in the case?
We’ve worked with the Pride group that’s recently emerged. Although not gay myself, I was pleased to attend their meeting to have a chance to explain relevant parts of the legal challenge. I have been a friend of Richard for many years, and more recently Tim as well.
The only outside group involved was Colours Caribbean, whose involvement in the Cayman case I had been aware of for some time. When they heard of our legal victory, despite ongoing appeals from both sides, they approached us to join the proceedings. We don’t control their involvement, but the fact that we haven’t objected to it apparently influenced the court’s decision to give them a speaking role in the October appeal.
What are your expectations?
I expect that Tim and Richard will win their appeal on the failure by the judge to deal with the equality before the law claim. Whatever the outcome of the government’s appeal, I expect that the British government will have to exercise its power of override, as it did in the Cayman Islands context, to introduce civil partnership recognition legislation. In TCI, the Governor, a British-appointed official, has a constitutional power to legislate in the best interests of the jurisdiction. For example, previous governors have forced through legislation decriminalising same-sex sexual activity – a move still resisted in other parts of the Caribbean.
I think our success will primarily relate to the anti-discrimination aspect of the lower court judge’s decision. Right now, we are in a perplexing situation: the judge has agreed with our argument that Richard and Tim’s constitutionally protected rights are being violated but he stopped short of implementing the necessary remedial measures.
This creates a glaring inconsistency: existing violations are acknowledged but no remedy is provided. So if another same-sex couple were to seek spouse treatment, they would be denied the exemption, even though the Court has recognised this as a breach of constitutional rights. It is unlikely that the Court of Appeal will accept this situation. We argue that the judge made a fundamental mistake in finding breaches but not proposing remedies. Moreover, the judge’s criticism of our approach fails to recognise alternative ways of remedying the situation, such as amending immigration laws to include same-sex couples in the eligibility criteria for spousal exemptions.
The delay in the judge’s decision, despite mounting pressure, suggests a rushed outcome in the end. It appears that in his haste, the judge failed to thoroughly explore possible solutions to the violations identified. I therefore anticipate that the Court of Appeal will scrutinise the lower court’s handling of the case and consider remedies in line with constitutional obligations.
What are the next steps?
The trajectory of progress depends heavily on the outcome of the Court of Appeal hearing. It’s unlikely a decision will be made immediately after the hearing, given the complexity and scale of the case. As we have argued that the lower court judge erred in his decision, the matter could be escalated to the Privy Council for constitutional review.
However, in terms of broader progress and the continued advancement of LGBTQI+ rights, increased visibility and public awareness are paramount. The greater the exposure and discussion surrounding the case, particularly at the appellate level, the more likely it is that attitudes will evolve positively. Increased awareness fosters confidence within the LGBTQI+ community, encouraging people to live more openly and authentically.
Historically, many people who identify as LGBTQI+ have felt compelled to leave TCI and seek more accepting environments abroad, primarily in cities in the UK or the USA. This trend underscores the prevailing reluctance to accept LGBTQI+ identities in the local context. It will undoubtedly take time to overcome this suspicion and foster a culture of acceptance, but progress is evident and ongoing.
It is my hope as a legal practitioner that church groups engage in this discussion in a constructive and inclusive way, avoiding regressive interpretations of religious doctrine. Such interpretations, rooted in outdated beliefs, only serve to hinder progress. It’s worth noting that TCI, essentially a tourist destination, relies heavily on its reputation as a progressive and welcoming place. Failure to address LGBTQI+ rights risks tarnishing this image, with negative implications for tourism and therefore for economic prospects.
Advancing LGBTQI+ rights in the TCI requires ongoing advocacy, awareness-raising and a concerted effort to foster a culture of inclusion and acceptance within the local community and wider society.
Get in touch with Stanbrook Prudhoe through itswebsite and connect with Tim Prudhoe onLinkedin.
