Lambda Warszawa - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Lambda Warszawa Association (Lambda Warsaw Association) is the oldest running Polish LGBT

LGBT

LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

organisation

LGBT rights organization

LGBT rights organizations are civil rights, health, and community organizations created and existing to further the civil and human rights and health of sexual minorities and to improve the gay community....

.

Lambda Warszawa is a public interest

Public interest

The public interest refers to the "common well-being" or "general welfare." The public interest is central to policy debates, politics, democracy and the nature of government itself...

organisation founded in October 1997 by activists of Rainbow Centre (Ośrodek “Rainbow”), which worked from 1995 until 1997. The aim of the association is to create a positive gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

and lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

identity, and build social tolerance

Toleration

Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...

toward sexual minorities.

In 2004, the association acquired the status of a public interest organisation (OPP), and has been a part of Mazowia Federation since then.

Fields of activity

Psychological help and support for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual people: setting up a helpline (Monday to Friday, 6 – 9 pm: 022 628 5222); office duty of psychiatrists, therapists, and lawyers; Gadu-Gadu
Gadu-Gadu
Gadu-Gadu is a Polish instant messaging client using a proprietary protocol. Gadu-Gadu is the most popular IM service in Poland, with over 15 million registered accounts and approximately 6.5 million users online daily. Gadu-Gadu’s casual gaming portal had some 500,000 active users at the end of...

Messenger duty; Internet chat duty; support and meeting groups (both for gay, lesbian, and transsexual people, and their relatives).
HIV/AIDS and addictions prevention: Safer Relationships programme (Program “Bezpieczne związki”), street- and partyworkers’ actions in LGBT clubs; office duty at Lambda Warszawa HQ; Internet chat duty; addictions prevention projects; internet portal www.bezpytan.pl.
Cultural and social actions addressed to LGBT people: The Film Club; library and reading room; organising discussions and meetings about LGBT literature; active students’ group
Anti-discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...

actions: Report on Sexual Discrimination in Poland (“Raport o dyskryminacji ze względu na orientację seksualną w Polsce”); social actions: Global Village (as part of All Different – All Equal Council of Europe Campaign, March 2007); Living Library project; anti-discrimination trainings. Along with Campaign Against Homophobia
Campaign Against Homophobia
Campaign Against Homophobia is a Polish LGBT organisation, which aims to promote legal and social equality for people outside the heteronorm. It was founded in Warsaw in September 2001 and since it has grown to the biggest NGO of this kind in Poland...

(KPH) and other LGBT organisations from across the Europe (Germany, France, and Spain), Lambda Warszawa annually gives Tolerance Award (Nagroda Tolerancji) for sexual orientation-based anti-exclusion policy. Polish Tolerance Award laureates are Kazimierz Kutz
Kazimierz Kutz
Kazimierz Julian Kutz is a Polish film director, author, journalist and politician, one of the representatives of the Polish Film School and a deputy speaker of the Senate of Poland.- Biography :...

(2006), Piotr Pacewicz (2007), Marzanna Pogorzelska (2008), and Zbigniew Holda (2009). Thanks to Lambda Warszawa presidents, Yga Kostrzewa and Krzysztof Kliszczynski, along with activists from other Polish LGBT organisations, the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...

pronounced illegal the ban put by the president of Warsaw, Lech Kaczynski, on the Equality Parade in 2005.

Lambda Warszawa is the first and only LGBT organisation in Poland that provides microgrant

Microgrant

A microgrant is a small sum of money distributed to an individual living on less than $1/day, extreme poverty, for the purpose of creating a sustainable livelihood or microenterprise...

s to other organisations that help the homosexual: as part of Stonewall Fund, Lambda Warszawa Microgrant Fund, the first fund competition was launched on May 28th, 2009.

Projects

Helpline and Legal and Psychological Help Programme: started in Rainbow Centre in 1995, running since then
Safer Relationships programme: HIV/AIDS prevention since 2000
Report on Sexual Discrimination in Poland: 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2005-2006
Sunday with Lambda project (projekt „Niedziela z Lambdą”) from 2002 until 2004: monthly movie and discussion meetings in Bastylia, a pancake shop in Warsaw
I Choose Tolerance project (projekt “Wybieram tolerancję”): an action connected to self-government elections in 2006 (inquiring future officials about their attitude toward LGBT people)
Season for Rubber project (projekt “Sezon na gumy”): all-Poland informational action about the usage of condoms (http://www.sezonnagumy.pl, 2007)
Co-creation of Polish National Campaign Committee (NCC): committee coordinating Polish campaign All Different-All Equal by Council of Europe (2007-2008)
Global Village project: anti-homophobia action (March 2007)
Academy of Anti-Discrimination project: trainings for self-government officials and non-governmental activists as part of European Year of Equal Chances for All (ERRSW)(March 2008)
Living Library Project: Let’s Talk About Diversity (Projekt Żywa Biblioteka – porozmawiajmy o różnorodności) (2008-2009)
www.bezpytan.pl: counselling service (2009)
Stonewall Fund: Lambda Warszawa Microgrant Fund (since May 2008)

Authorities

Authorities of the association are elected by its members during general election meetings. Term in office of the management lasts two years, and, as chairpersons, there have been:

Michal Pawlega (1997-2005)
Yga Kostrzewa (2005-2007)
Krzysztof Kliszczynski (2007-2011)
Dorota Bregin (since 2011)

Publications

Report on Sexual Discrimination in Poland (2000, 2001, 2002, 2005-2006)
Against Discrimination. Education Pack for Trainers (Warsaw 2005, ISBN 83-9234-20-03, ISBN 978-83-923420-0-7)
Let’s Talk About Diversity. Living Library. A Book of Good Practice (Warsaw 2008)
A Legal Guide for Lesbians, Gays, and Transsexuals (Warsaw 2008)
A Guide for Helpline Operators (Warsaw 2008)

Fields of activity

Projects

Authorities

Publications

Links