On the 17th of November VPride conducted a discussion based workshop with afew of the representatives from our partners in Santo.

The Workshop was held at The Espiritu, and the lovely staff helped the workshop run smoothly, from start to finish. The workshop was discussion based, facilitated by Malone Wilson, and was filled with activities for the various participants to go through, one such activity was for the individuals to write down their respective SOGIE (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Gender expression), this activity aimed to reveal the diversity between each of the participants, and with this also brought about topics for discussion such as, stereotypes, societal norms, umbrella terms, etc.

After the activity was concluded, the final topic of discussion led by Malone, was the concept of intersectionality. Once intersectionality (being defined by multiple things) was described and defined, an activity was given to the participants in groups, to write down their groups various intersectionalitys.

Facilitator, Malone Wilsons own Intersectionality.

The activity concluded with an in-depth discussion on each of the intersectionality’s and how certain factors would yield more benefits or challenges, this resulted in an emotional realization about our society and communities to the participants, such as how our perception of people is ruled by the outer appearance.

Concluding Malones section of the workshop, Yannick Tarivuhavuha stepped in to go over the VPride developed booklet titled: Effective SOGIE Inclusion In times of Disaster: A Guide For Humanitarian Agencies in Vanuatu and The Pacific, Yannick went over guidelines to follow, and concluded with an activity where each group answered a different question and presented to the rest of the attendees, the questions aimed to identify the different clustered with disaster management in Santo, the various best practices in disaster shelters, along with the sensitizing practices in the community.

The workshop concluded with the handing over of the guidelines to each of the participants for them to analyze their organizations inclusion in policies and practices.