Almost 200 delegates from all over Europe gathered in Sofia for the 10th ILGA-Europe conference. This year the conference theme was “We are family: our families in Europe and the European family”.

For those who may not be familiar with the work of ILGA-Europe, it is the European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), a non-governmental organisation which represents its members, principally organisations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans persons, at the European level. Its membership consists of some 200 organisations from across Europe. ILGA-Europe enjoys participative status at the Council of Europe and receives financial support from the European Union.

It is thus the crucial organisation with which we need to be involved if we are to take further our work in Europe and FFLAG was delighted therefore to receive an invitation from Patricia Prendiville, Executive Director, not just to attend but to participate in their annual conference.

One of the two plenary sessions and various workshops discussed and explored the diversity of families and the ways of ensuring their recognition and acceptance. Jenny Broughton and Frances Nicol represented FFLAG and Claudia Toscano and Salvatore Sanno AGEDO. We had hoped to be joined by Pere Teres from AMPGIL so that the three partner countries in the Daphne Project would be represented but unfortunately that was not possible. We were invited to contribute to the plenary session on the family, to run a workshop on being parents to LGBT people and were generously given the opportunity to launch the Daphne Project ‘Family Matters’.

The Plenary took the form of a panel consisting of: Jenny Broughton FFLAG/EuroFLAG; Eric Garnier APGL (a French organisation of lesbian and gay parents); Jane Thomas (Germany) Transgender Council of Europe; Jackie Lewis (UK) ILGA-Europe Executive Board and was chaired by Maya Salvado (France) ILGA-Europe Executive Board. We each had 15 minutes to speak followed by a question and answer session. Each of us spoke from our particular standpoint and Jackie Lewis summed up and outlined ILGA-Europe’s policy on families. I spoke briefly about the work of the parents’ associations, the setting up of EuroFLAG and the results of our research project, the Daphne Project and our hopes for a European future in which our families will be treated with the respect to which they are entitled.

During the workshop Frances Nicol outlined the development of FFLAG and the range of work in which we are now involved and Claudia Toscano talked about the work of AGEDO and showed the 20 minute DVD ‘No Two Alike’ (Nessuno Uguale) made in a secondary school in Milan in which a mixed group of gay and straight students discuss their experiences and feelings on the issue of homosexuality and moving from a position of antagonism on the part of the ‘straight’ students to understanding and mutual respect. There was discussion from the floor about the situation in different European countries and with a group of delegates from the Netherlands, Denmark, Bulgaria, Moldova, Slovenia, Ireland, France, Poland the range of experience was wide. They all expressed great interest in and appreciation of the work the parents do and we received very encouraging feedback.

In the evening a large number of delegates joined us for the launch of the Daphne Project ‘Family Matters’ and this gave us an opportunity to outline the objectives, who will benefit, the different strands of work which each of the partners will carry out and our hopes that in two years time they will be joining us at the closing conferences of the project. There was great interest in and support for the project. All the delegates received the press release in their information packs and I had a great response to my request during the plenary for those interested in being kept informed of the progress of the project and providing contacts for parents’ groups to become involved in EuroFlag to give me names and email addresses. I have set up a ‘Sofia email group’ which already includes members from Holland, Belgium, Bulgaria, Portugal, France, Ireland and Cyprus.

I am sure that I speak for Frances, Claudia and Salvatore when I say that I cannot thank sufficiently the ILGA-Europe staff for the immense co-operation and help we received beforehand and for the warmth of the welcome they gave us and their kindness during the conference. We met old friends from the EuroFlag meetings in Brussels – Patricia herself, Olivier Collet and Kurt Krickler, and made many new ones. It was ILGA-Europe’s 10th birthday and a joy to be part of their richly deserved celebrations.

We wish them success in all their endeavours in the future and believe that we can add the parents’ contribution to creating the kind of Europe in which, in the words of our shared objectives, there is recognition of fundamental human rights, full social inclusion and recognition of the diversity of family relationships.

Jenny Broughton, FFLAG Trustee