Rainbow Youth

Rainbow Youth is a programme that aims to ensure that all practitioners who work with young people are equipped with the necessary competences and skills to be fully inclusive of LGBTIQ+ young people within their practice. Rainbow Youth explores interpersonal dimensions of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics and particularly for those practitioners who are motivated to be more inclusive in their practice at local, national and European level.  The specific objectives of the Rainbow Youth programme are: 

1. To provide the necessary competences to include a positive and inclusive approach to diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) in youth work practice. 

2. To explore the specificities and challenges of working with LGBTIQ+ young people in a range of education settings and activities. 

3. To examine the difficulties that LGBTIQ+ young people face and how practitioners can became facilitators for positive change or growth. 

4. To provide a framework of action and a series of tools to challenge discrimination on the basis of SOGIESC. 

5. To offer a space for inquiry and personal growth of participants. 

Training courses in Rainbow Youth have been co-funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ programme in Scotland, Italy, Spain, Greece, North Macedonia, Slovakia and more since 2017, which have additionally aimed: 

6. To raise awareness and acceptance of LGBTIQ+ people across Europe. 

7. To support key actors responsible for promoting and advancing equal rights for LGBTIQ+ people across Europe whilst fostering equality, inclusion and nondiscrimination.  

We are currently working on a suite of resources including a competence framework and a youth work manual and these will be available online throughouth 2023 as part of our KA2 Rainbow Youth project.  

Pitlochry, Scotland, December 2022 

This edition of Rainbow Youth brought together participants from UK, France, Cyprus, Czechia, North Macedonia, Sweden, Spain, Romania, Greece, Portugal and Italy.  You can read the personal account of Fi who took part in the training and wrote a short learning blog here.  Click the video below to hear some reflections from the participants. 

Struga, North Macedonia, May 2022 

This edition of the training was called Diverse Youth Identities and brought together participants from UK, North Macedonia. Spain, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine. Click on the video to hear from some of the participants. 

Glasgow, Scotland, October 2017

This edition of the training brought together participants from Armenia, Jordan, Turkey, Spain, Italy, Germany, Romania, and Hungary.