This is the short report on the 1st historic meeting of Belarusian LGBT
leaders that took place in Minsk on 10 February and was a great success.

As you may remember the idea of a meeting has been proposed in the beginning
of December 2006 by Amnesty International Belarus LGBT Network and has found
broad support among the Belarusian activists. Leaders of almost all acting
LGBT organizations, projects and initiatives have taken part: HIV/AIDS
prevention NGO "Meeting", Amnesty International Belarus LGBT Network,
Belarusian Initiative of Young Gays, Lambda Belarus, Volunteers without
Borders, and administrator of Belarusian LGBT portals gayby.net,
britva.gay.ru. Known Polish gay activist Lukasz Palucki attended too.

Participants of a meeting have begun with presentations of acting LGBT
projects and initiatives. Discussion on the situation and problems faced by
Belarusian LGBT movement has followed. Lukasz Palucki, the representative of
Equality Foundation invited by Amnesty International Belarus has told
participants about achievements and problems of Polish LGBT movement. Being
at least 10 years older than ours, the Polish movement till now faces
problems well familiar to us - from excessive ambition of leaders to rigid
competition for financial resources. Recent example is a dispute around a
project of monument to commemorate gay victims of Nazi's concentration
camps. And, nevertheless, Poles can brag of a high degree of unity when it
is going on serious things. Such as the last year's Warsaw Equality parade
which made stunning success and have involved in the numbers 15 000 person.
Yes, there is a lot to learn from our nearest neighbours!

Further we talked about opportunities of joint projects, an information
exchange (magazines, bulletins, web-sites, blogs, networks, yahoo groups, a
web-community, etc.), creation of positive image Belarusian LGBT movement
inside the country and at the international level, cooperation with
governmental structures, promotion of LGBT culture and many other things.

Despite obvious differences, both the registered organizations and informal
initiatives have developed a lot of variants of possible cooperation: from
advisory support to mutually advantageous use of resources of each other
(information, administrative, organizational, financial, etc.). Participants
of a meeting have noted that it is possible to do many things without
official registration. The representative of the Belarusian Initiative of
Young Gays has shared successful experience of work with strictly homophobic
organizations like Belarusian Popular Front and Belarusian Nationwide Union
of Youth. The young man also managed to publish a number of articles on LGBT
problems in pro-government media.

Great attention has been given to information exchange - during the last
year the new LGBT resources appeared. We decided not be isolated in own
narrow-design purposes, and to cooperate intensively, searching for
innovative approaches to wider audiences.

Perhaps, one of the major achievements of a meeting was the agreement on
maintenance of positive image of Belarusian LGBT movement inside the country
and abroad and on collective responsibility for actions in this connection.
In particular, we talked about unacceptability of use of "black" PR
technologies against each other.

It is necessary to note the intention of participants in the near future to
develop strategic approaches with a view of cooperation with state
structures, business and civil society sector. Work is supposed to be
conducted by means of an exchange of ideas by e-mail. As a variant, it was
offered to create yahoo group.

Without exaggeration the meeting can be named a historic step in development
of LGBT movement in Belarus. It would be desirable to hope, that the first
step will be followed by the second. At least, it is already known, that the
next meeting of leaders of Belarusian LGBT movement is planned for April.

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