De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) has signed a new agreement to work closely with Leicester LGBT Centre, giving students vital experience and helping to stamp out prejudice and discrimination.
The partnership will see DMU students and graduates offered placements and volunteering opportunities working alongside centre staff, helping deliver support, organise events and connect members of the LGBT community.
The agreement will also see staff and students trained by Leicester LGBT Centre to act as anti-hate crime ambassadors, working on many of the #DMUlocal projects which take the skills and experience the university offers out across the local community.
In addition, the centre will collaborate with DMU to ensure wider awareness and participation in community events like LGBT History month, #DMUpride and the Leicester LGBT Centre’s 40th anniversary.
The partnership deepens the existing co-operation between DMU and the centre, following up on the university’s commitment to promoting equality, tolerance and freedom.
Professor Dominic Shellard, Vice-Chancellor of De Montfort University said: “The Leicester LGBT Centre works tirelessly to eliminate the social inequalities and discriminatory behaviour that people who identify as LGBT – many of our staff and students numbering among those – can often face. It is a credit to the Leicester community.
“As such we want to strengthen the ties we already have with the centre, to collaborate and co-operate with its work and give our students unique and rewarding experiences working closely with the centre’s members, experiences which in turn benefit the whole community.”
As a consequence of the agreement, the Leicester LGBT Centre will take on two DMU Graduate Champions to work alongside staff. The Graduate Champion scheme offers recent graduates the chance to take up a paid, six-week long, internship to enhance their CV and give them valuable skills in a competitive jobs market.
Current students will also benefit from the partnership. The centre will provide placements for students on courses like Social Work, Youth and Community Development, Policing, HR Management, Interior Design, Architecture as well as others associated with the centre’s work.
In February staff and students from DMU celebrated the second year of #DMUpride, an annual month-long festival campaigning for and celebrating the LGBT community, which this year saw the launch of the DMU Centre for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer (LGBTQ) Research.
Mark Beasley, Chairman of the Leicester LGBT Centre’s Board of Directors, said: “We are proud to be working with DMU at such an engaging level. Both organisations will benefit greatly from this partnership, developing opportunities and promoting a message of equality across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.
Posted on Friday 18 March 2016