Volunteer with LGBT Asylum

• Can take on responsibility and commit to the group for a longer period
• Keep the interests and needs of asylum activists and refugees at your heart no matter what
• That you are willing to be trained in the work, including coming to our Saturday meetings, Friday cafes, camps, refugees and/or contact persons meetings, half years meetings, and supervision. In average, it is 2-3 meetings a month
• That you will participate in the introductory training and continue to learn about new regulations and laws
• That you have time and energy for the work, including some periods of more intensive work loads
• Have experiences on your own body about being LGBT+ person (this means, that straight cis-persons cannot be volunteers in LGBT Asylum)
• Speak English and/or Danish to some degree
• Can use a computer

Please send a motivated letter to info@lgbtasylum.dk.

Include in the letter which parts and areas you prefer to volunteer within (you can of course be part of many).

As contact persons our work is always based on the premise that the asylum activist (in LGBT Asylum an asylum seeker is an asylum activist) basically has the responsibility and initiative.

Contact persons guide and support the asylum activist in their way.

As a contact person you will follow one or more asylum activists in their way through the Danish asylum system. This work is both in relation to the person’s legal case at the authorities and in relation to the social life as a newly arrived LGBT+ person in Denmark.

In relation to the legal case work, among other things, you will inform the asylum activist about the asylum system and their rights and responsibilities, you prepare the asylum activist for the interviews with different Danish authorities, and you help preparing the case by e.g. gathering background information about the legal and social situation for LGBT+ people in the country of origin.

You will also guide the asylum activist to get the right help or guidance from relevant persons/organizations/authorities, that could be health authorities, asylum centers, DRC Danish Refugee Council, lawyers.

Beside the legal case work, you will also function as the social link between the asylum activist and LGBT Asylum, and, thus, one of the tasks is to pass on information about social events like Saturday meetings (that is our monthly social meetings), Friday Cafes, Prides, demonstrations and so on. And it will be you, who arrange transport for the asylum activist to come to these events.

If you want to volunteer as a contact person please send your application to info@lgbtasylum.dk.

The group offers a community for LGBT+ refugees who got asylum in Denmark, organizes monthly Friday cafes, and a refugees’ weekend camp every half year. We help, guide and support each other in the group.

We need more volunteers, who can help build and support the community and be part of creating the framework for inclusive and participatory activities and friendships.

We help each other to find a place to stand in Denmark, that be finding friends and communities, maybe a place to live, a job or something to study.

We help each other, when one feels lonely and have hard times – and we share the joys, when things are going the right way, and one wants to share that happiness with likeminded friends.

We also help each other to contact municipalities, job centres and other authorities – and then we hang out and laugh a lot!

We want to strengthen the community with more activities both in Aarhus, Odense and Copenhagen. That could be thematic meetings, basis groups, game nights, Friday nights out, or completely different activities, which you and we could have fun in doing.

If you want to volunteer in our Refugees group please send your application to info@lgbtasylum.dk.

We are looking for people who have experience and interest in planning and making events.

Once a month, we have Saturday meetings with different themes for all our members. The themes vary from sexual health to sport games, mental wellbeing, religion from an LGBT+ perspective, multi-religious holiday parties with lipsync competitions and everything else.

Typically, we participate 40-50 persons in an event, and most times we end the event with a shared dinner and maybe a night out.

Beside these monthly meetings in Aarhus and Copenhagen, we of course participate in both Aarhus and Copenhagen Pride. These events also need to be planned and organized. A specific task for the coming year can be to plan and organize a support event in collaboration with external partners.

All our events are planned and organized in close teamwork together with asylum activists, refugees and contact persons in the group. Therefore it is an essential part of our event planning to include members and volunteers in LGBT Asylum and to make participatory and co-creating activities before and during the events.

If you want to volunteer in planning and making events please send your application to info@lgbtasylum.dk.

LGBT+ asylum seekers and refugees are often an invisible group, who face particular challenges in the asylum system and, very often, social isolation as long with racism, homophobia and/or  transphobia. Knowledge and information about one’s possibilities in this kind of cases are almost non-existing within the Danish asylum system, and that can have severe effects for not just the asylum seekers’ conditions during the application process, but also for the outcome of the individual cases.

Many of the asylum activists (the members in the group who are applying for asylum) in the group do not speak Danish or English, but for example Farsi/Dari, Arabic, Malay, Luganda and several other languages. Almost all contact persons speak Danish and English.

Most asylum activists live in asylum centres far from Copenhagen, so much of the contact is done by text messages, email and telephone. We host several social events and meetings where all contact persons, asylum activists and refugees in the group get together in Copenhagen and Aarhus.

We are looking for interpreters/translators who are LGBT+ sensitive and can help us with interpretation and translation associated with:

• Case-preparatory meetings where the contact persons prepare the asylum activists for interviews with the authorities, such as the Danish Immigration Service, Refugee Appeals Board or others
• Written and oral translation of documents, newspaper articles, letters, minutes of meetings, and other things to be used in asylum activists’ asylum cases
• Text messages, emails and phone messages from contact persons to asylum activists or vice versa, when, for example buying bus tickets to social gatherings, talk about problems at the centers or simple questions
• Ad hoc interpretation at social events and presentations.

We need interpreters/translators, who:

• Can interpret and translate between Danish or English and another language
• Is either an LGBT+ person or have an understanding of topics related to LGBT+
• Can help with interpretation and/or translation about twice a month

As an interpreter/translator in LGBT Asylum you are an important part of the group’s political and social work and it is expected that you can be part of the group for a longer period.

You are bound by the duty of confidentiality and you are not to disclose any information or names.

If you want to volunteer as an interpreter/translator please send your application to info@lgbtasylum.dk.