The first Caribbean Women and Sex­u­al Di­ver­si­ty con­fer­ence or­gan­ised by the St Lu­cia hu­man rights or­gan­i­sa­tion Unit­ed and Strong Inc (U&S) and Fun­dashon Orguyo Ko­r­sou/Cu­ra­cao Pride Foun­da­tion (FOKO) brought to­geth­er 35 women from 14 coun­tries for a week-long con­fer­ence in Cu­ra­cao that dealt with ad­vo­ca­cy around LBT women.

In a re­lease, U&S Co-Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Keni­ta Placide said the gath­er­ing sought to ed­u­cate and em­pow­er women to stim­u­late and strength­en the move­ment.

"Hu­man rights are chal­lenged by au­thor­i­ties, in­sti­tu­tions and es­tab­lish­ments that seek to sup­press our right to ex­press our­selves and ar­tic­u­late our opin­ions. LBT peo­ple should not be left be­hind in the growth of Caribbean so­ci­ety. This con­fer­ence is about our du­ty to self, our du­ty to fight against the in­jus­tices and prej­u­dices sub­ject­ed to this mi­nor­i­ty group. The road to so­cial jus­tice is not an easy one and re­quires rev­o­lu­tion­ary change. It is still not with­out pas­sion and great sac­ri­fices."

Un­der the theme Strength­en­ing the in­vis­i­ble woman and em­pow­er­ing her to lead­er­ship, ac­tivists iden­ti­fied crit­i­cal is­sues af­fect­ing LBT women in the Caribbean and de­fined ac­tion to ad­dress them. Fa­cil­i­ta­tors cov­ered top­ics that in­clude self-de­fence, ac­tivism and move­ment build­ing, pro­pos­al writ­ing, me­dia, law and his­to­ry.

Es­sen­tial to the CWS­DC was the con­tri­bu­tion of fund­ing part­ners. The Caribbean Fo­rum for the Lib­er­a­tion and Ac­cep­tance of Gen­ders and Sex­u­al­i­ties (Car­i­FLAGS), Ar­cus Foun­da­tion, ARC In­ter­na­tion­al, the In­ter­na­tion­al Gay and Les­bian Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion (IGLHRC), Glob­al Equal­i­ty, the As­traea Les­bian Foun­da­tion For Jus­tice and En­vi­sion­ing Glob­al LGBT Hu­man Rights, gave in­valu­able sup­port and ad­vice.

Car­i­FLAGS Co-Chair Tieneke Sumter high­light­ed the net­work's sup­port. "Car­i­FLAGS was hap­py to sup­port the CWS­DC. Giv­ing sup­port to LB&T ini­tia­tives is one of our pri­or­i­ties. As par­tic­i­pant and fa­cil­i­ta­tor at the CWS­DC I took with me how im­por­tant it is that L&B lead­ers and ac­tivist from the re­gion have a space where they can share knowl­edge, learn from each oth­er best prac­tices but al­so em­pow­er each oth­er. In many Caribbean coun­tries the is­sues L&B women face are in­vis­i­ble and some lead­ers have to pi­o­neer alone with no re­sources. The CWS­DC cre­at­ed a space where we just could BE, make new friends and load up our en­er­gy to con­tin­ue to strive for equal rights for all."

The event was staged along­side Cu­ra­cao Pride cel­e­bra­tion and in­cor­po­rat­ed sev­er­al pride ac­tiv­i­ties. Among these was the award cer­e­mo­ny recog­nis­ing in­di­vid­u­als who have con­tributed to the LGBT move­ment. Placide was recog­nised along with Mario Klein­modig and Dud­ley Fer­di­nan­dus of FOKO and Faye Fer­di­nan­dus of Car­i­FLAGS.

In ac­knowl­edg­ing the award Placide notes, "This is a trib­ute to every­one who has worked and sup­port­ed the move­ment and me. Thank you to de­ceased Robert Carr, Eg­bert Fe­lix, Joan Di­di­er for iden­ti­fy­ing and giv­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty for my lead­er­ship to shine."

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