Partner with Just Like Us
Just Like Us is a UK charity for LGBT+ young people. On 19 May, we were joined by their CEO, Dominic Arnall, and Head of Development, Marco Greco, who came to talk about the work they do, and how our member firms might support or partner with them.
Just Like Us was founded four years ago for the simple reason that growing up LGBT+ is still unacceptably tough.
While a lot of legislation and support is now in place to support LGBT+ adults, not much has changed for young people. Today, 40% of schools in the UK have nothing in place to educate their students, to further LGBT+ inclusion, or support LGBT+ students. There is a massive inconsistency between educational establishments; while some have programmes in place, others have nothing.
The Just Like Us mission is to change this and over the next five years they aim to be working with three in every four UK schools, to ensure they have LGBT+ inclusion initiatives. To do this, they run three programmes:
Ambassador Programme
Just Like Us partners with employers on their Ambassador Programme to recruit, train and support LGBT+ young people, aged 18-25, to have the skills, knowledge and confidence to deliver inspiring talks and workshops in schools – to use their own stories to champion LGBT+ equality and challenge prejudice. This approach benefits both LGBT+ young people, who get to hear from a positive relatable role model and see that it is possible to live a happy and fulfilled life – open in their identities – and also non LGBT+ pupils, who learn about LGBT+ issues and leave sessions inspired to be allies.
In turn, by going into the firms that support Just Like Us for training, the ambassadors themselves see happy, visible and successful LGBT+ role models in the workplace.
School Diversity Week
School Diversity Week is the annual, national celebration of LGBT+ inclusion in education, established by Just Like Us. The charity coordinates the campaign and provides teachers with a comprehensive toolkit, to enable them to deliver lessons, workshops, events and activities, which tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying and celebrate LGBT+ identities. In 2019, School Diversity Week took place in schools 1.4 million students across the country. In 2020, they have moved the week to a completely online format and will be running School Diversity Week: Home Edition from 22ndto 26thJune, with the aim of reaching up to 2 million young people.
Pride Group Programme
The Pride Group Programme trains teachers to support students in establishing and running Pride Groups – student-led, school-based clubs for LGBT+ students and allies. It is the culmination of the journey a school will go on towards achieving inclusion. The ideal outcome is for Just Like Us to give schools the tools they need, and leave them equipped to self-manage their LGBT+ inclusion agenda.
What can InterInvest firms do to help?
There are various partnership options, both formal and informal. Organisations can help in the following ways:
Proud at Home Sponsorship – Firms looking to celebrate Pride remotely can become Proud at Home Sponsors, supporting School Diversity Week: Home Edition and achieving significant social impact, brand recognition and employee engagement opportunities. Please request a sponsorship pack from Just Like Us directly.
Corporate Partnership – Firms can get involved in the work of Just Like Us at a level to suit them and the charity has developed a corporate partnership package with a range of tiers and options.
Beyond the above, there are many ways that a charity can get involved in volunteering, running joint events and offering pro bono support.
Find out more or get in touch
To find out more about the work of Just Like Us and to discuss how your firm can partner with the charity, please contact: Marco Greco, Head of Development by email at marco.greco@justlikeus.org or telephone on 07976767270.
You can read the corporate sponsorship pack here.