Friday 23 January 2015, at the International House of Women (Casa Internazionale delle Donne) in Rome, took place the kick-off Conference of the project, organized by the Italian partner CIRSES.
Both Italian and EU partners of Diversities@Work project attended the event and guests invited to listen and to participate on the central themes of the day: the LGBT Diversity in workplaces.
After the opening speech by Maurizio Turrà, President of the project leader Organization Is.Con. – Istituti Consorziati di Napoli (Campania Region), and the welcome speech by Ms Francesca Kock, President of the International Women's House, Alessandra Antinori - CIRSES introduced the Agenda and coordinated the works, explaining in short terms the project and presenting the partnership.
After this introduction, the representatives of each Country partner (Italy, Austria, Belgium, Spain and Bulgaria) illustrated through some presentations the most important results from the first stage of the research carried out, aimed to investigate the legislation concerning rights and non-discrimination towards LGBT people in each Country Partner, Good Practices and/or policies (if any) implemented in the different Partner Countries in order to prevent LGBT discrimination and favour Diversity within companies and firms.
The overviews described by the Partners have provided elements and data useful for the second part of the morning devoted to the round table focused on "The LGBT Diversity in workplaces: key terms, practices and policies ".
The round table produced a fruitful discussion which was attended by institutional guests such as: Claudia Villante - Isfol Italian National Agency Erasmus Plus VET, Pasquale Di Marzo - Representative of ARLAS Campania Region, Paola Di Lazzaro UNAR - National Office against Racial Discrimination, Davide Zotti Arcigay Association, Luca Chianura - Coordinator for SAIFIP - S. Camillo-FORLANINI ROME, Leila Pereira President of Libellula Association, Andrea Maccarrone President of the Circolo Mario Mieli.
Main points emerged from the round table were: the need to create tools of empowerment for gay people to support them in their own visibility in the workplace, especially for those workers (male and female) who work in education; the difficulties of transgender people to access and stay at work in the crucial moments of the transition; the need to inform and raise awareness among companies on the topic of LGBT diversity to ensure that consider it as a professional resource.