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Rainbow Collective to offer education, advocacy

New non-profit group will offer workshops for businesses and other organizations, advocacy and resources for LGBTQ community.

THUNDER BAY – A new organization plans to boost education and advocacy efforts on gender and sexual diversity issues in Thunder Bay and the surrounding region.

Jason Veltri, president of the newly-formed Rainbow Collective of Thunder Bay, said the core team behind the collective saw a hunger for more capacity to do that work.

“We felt there were gaps in our community – resources and education weren’t readily accessible,” he said.

The group will offer workshops and other programming geared to local schools, businesses, other organizations, and provide resources and advocacy to the LGBTQ community.

“We want businesses and other organizations to start learning about broadening their approach and their policy [on] inclusion and gender and sexual diversity in the workplace,” said vice-president of inclusion Jessy Bogacki.

“We’re looking to have some sort of standard for businesses and [other] organizations, to have a baseline about our community, how to respect our community, what language to use around pronouns, and [other] best practices.”

Initial workshops include Pronouns 101, a Coming Out Checklist, and Transgender Medical Care.

The sessions will range from about one to three hours, said Bogacki, and be offered on a sliding scale to accommodate non-profits and equity groups.

The collective is incorporated as a not-for-profit, starting with a four-person board (the other members are Annalicia Kaban and Daniel Stilla) – though Veltri expected that to grow as the organization puts down roots in the community.

Central to that process will be the launch of five “leadership councils” (Seniors, Two-Spirit, BIPOC, Youth, and Transgender). The group is currently soliciting participation in those councils. More information is available at its website.

That structure will ensure the Rainbow Collective is accountable to the community, Veltri said.

“Creating our leadership councils will help build our organization from the ground up, instead of board down,” he stated. “Oftentimes boards are driven by what they feel is right; instead they should be listening and empowering their communities to help with this work.”

Veltri resigned as chair of Thunder Pride in 2020, citing differences with its board over the organization’s governance model and organizational direction.

The two groups will be complementary, he said, noting two Thunder Pride board members also sit on the collective’s board.

“We’re here to focus on education, awareness and advocacy work,” he said. “We’re not going to be taking part in planning Pride – that’s Thunder Pride’s expertise.”

“We really want to add to the work [they’re] doing. It’s a lot of work for one particular organization… There’s not just one Indigenous organization doing work in the community, there’s not just one youth organization doing work. For us, we’re adding capacity to the network.”

As the collective grows, they also hope to do more work throughout the region, Veltri said.

“Our focus right now will be on the city, but our goal would be to start creating a network – especially [to the] east,” he said. “There are no pride organizations until you hit Hearst. That to me says we have a lot more work to do, especially along the North Shore.”



Ian Kaufman

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