£50,000 raised in campaign for London's first LGBTQ community centre

Robin de Peyer10 June 2018

More than £50,000 has been raised as part of a campaign to open London’s first dedicated LGBTQ community centre.

Campaigners say they hope to create a “safe and secure” space for members of the capital’s LGBTQ community to “lay down roots”.

They have already raised more than £50,000 through a crowdfunder campaign to get the project off the ground, and have been backed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow minister Diane Abbott.

After hitting their initial fundraising target, the organisers now hope to swell the campaign coffers to six figures.

Ola Awosika, from Bethnal Green, said he felt inspired to get involved in the project after learning that the capital does not currently have a comparable facility after a previous incarnation closed in the 1990s.

“I remember being in school and being heavily bullied for being gay, and not really having any resources or anybody to turn to,” the 36-year-old visual merchandiser said.

A meeting for the planned LGBTQ centre in London (Eivind Hansen )
Eivind Hansen

“It would’ve been amazing to have had a centre which I could have gone to as a young LGBT person, just to meet other people who were in the same situation and to meet elders.”

The project’s organisers now hope to put London on the map alongside cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Berlin by opening a new centre which will cater to LGBTQ people of all ages and backgrounds.

“I can’t believe we don’t have something like this in London; it’s an absolute joke,” said Mr Awosika. “People come here all the time - especially LGBT people - to be themselves. London’s a place where you come to be yourself …. And you have the freedom to do that.”

While a site for the centre has not yet been confirmed, organisers have been scouting locations in Hackney, and have been in contact with the borough’s council as well as Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office.

Campaigners hope the centre will appeal to people of all ages and backgrounds
Eivind Hansen

They hope to have smashed their £50,000 fundraising target by next week, allowing them to move on to the next phase of a project which launched last year.

Those behind the campaign say the centre will include a cafe, workspace, event space and even advice and clinical rooms where people can have sexual health tests, and receive counselling sessions.

Crucially, they say the space will allow people of all ages to meet other members of the LGBTQ community in a space which is free and does not involve alcohol.

Molly Mulready, a 38-year-old lawyer from Hackney, got involved after her 12-year-old son, who she asked not to be named, came out as trans.

"We went to the launch and everybody was so nice to my son,” she said. “There are not many places where a trans 12-year-old can be completely themselves and know that they’re not being judged and that people aren’t second guessing their identity. It was just immediately a massive breath of fresh air for him and me.”

The project has embarked on an active social media campaign to raise funding

She said much of the benefit for her son was in meeting people who were older than him and from whom he could learn.

“He’s been able to meet trans people who are older than him and a bit further along with the experience of being out and trans than he is,” Mulready added. “So he’s been able to speak to them about the practical and emotional challenges of being trans.”

Diane Abbott, the shadow Home Secretary and MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, warned that the absence of an LGBTQ centre showed how London could still be an "unequal place".

“The fight for rights goes on,” she said. “There has been a rise in homophobic attacks, and hostility to people simply for their sexuality or identity.

“This only highlights the need for a safe, supportive environment for people to meet, and hopefully a fun place where they can share their experiences.”

Mulready is among more than 1,000 donors to the project who say such a space could make a vital difference - in her case for her son.

"It’s such a good idea. It would reduce you to tears, some of the things he says you know? It’d be so great to get it off the ground.”